Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey brain Stuff Lauren Vogel bam here with another classic episode from our archives. Among the many puzzles and problems that we need to solve before we could send astronauts off on long term missions to the Moon, let alone such far away places as Mars, is the fact that humans need to eat, and that it's a psychological issue as well as a physical one, which brings us to today's question,
could human waste feed astronauts? Hi brain Stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here, a manned mission to Mars might take around six months. Suffice it to say, when meal times roll around, astronauts won't be dialing up delivery pizza and root. Instead, they may be eating nutrition derived from their own fecal matter, a concept that would save on cargo space and wait
while maximizing materials already found on the spacecraft. At Penn State Universe, the scientists are developing a system that leverages certain types of microbes that convert human solid waste into protein and fat Latin foods. Researchers, for better or Worse, have already called the result a microbial goo that's sort of reminiscent of Vegemite, a comparison that seems unlikely to
please Vegemites corporate executives. Because it's difficult and time consuming to grow food in space, astronauts have to rely on items in their closed environment. The lynch pin of the system is anaerobic digestion, which can break down certain materials without the need for oxygen. It's a common process for reducing municipal waste on Earth. In tests, the digestion process
produced methane gas. That gas turns out to be useful in growing a microbe called Methylococcus capsulattice, which is already used for animal feed pellets and contains about fifty protein and thirty six percent fat content. According to the National Academy of Sciences, humans function best when they ingest nutrition with about fifty carbohydrates, twenty percent fat, and tend to protein. So the goose still has a ways to go before
it can count as an ideal food source. The tests relied on substitute liquid and solid waste instead of actual human wastes. When the real thing is introduced, there will also be concerns about pathogens that could cause illnesses. That's where tweaking the pH levels and or temperatures may help. Tests showed that by increasing the system's temperatures to around a hundred and fifty eight degrees fahrenheit that seventy degrees celsius,
most germs were eliminated, yet the nutritious microbe Thermis aquaticus survived. Alternately, they raised the alkalinity of another batch and found that bacteria called halo Monus deciderrata still managed to proliferate while germs did not. The team borrowed concepts from commercial aquarium filters that use fixed film filters to neutralize fish waste. The filters incorporate a bacteria laden film and were adapted
by researchers to accommodate methane production. The result solid waste can be treated in a matter of hours instead of days plus. Because the system is self contained, it really doesn't require much babysitting other than you know, the necessary inputs. But there's also the matter of taste. Lisa Steinberg, the lead author on the study, says that the bacteria could be mixed with other materials and flavorings to make it
more palatable. She said in an email, it's nearly certain that there would be plants grown in conjunction with this food stuff, which would provide additional flavors and textures. And what about the potential psychological issues associated with consuming a material of such dreary origins. Steinberg said astronauts already have to drink their own processed urine, so they're probably accustomed to things being done differently in space than on Earth.
Some astronauts on the International Space Station do already recycle some of their urine. Poop, on the other hand, has a more spectacular ending. It's blasted into space, caught on Earth's orbit, and then burns up like a shooting star on reentry. Yes, in space, poop has historically been a problem. Maybe now poop will be part of the solution. While these still experimental concept may not exactly fire up astronauts appetites, it may eventually provide sustenance to space explorers who have
a limited buffet options among the stars. Today's episode was written by Nathan Chandler and produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Klang. For more on this and lots of other far out topics, visit House to Forks dot com. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.