Customizable, Reprogrammable, Food Preparation, Production and Invention System

Providing astronauts with healthy, appetizing and diverse meals from materials that can be easily stored and transported into space, is a critical ongoing problem in space travel and exploration. Here, we propose a radical new approach to creating meals in space. Our ultimate aim is to design a portable food preparation and production machine, capable of creating food items that emulate the taste, texture, smell and appearance of any desired meal, using a finite and pre-defined combination of ingredients and cooking techniques. Rather than attempting to transport and store a large variety of foods from earth, appetizing, high-quality and varied meals will be created from a small, standardized set of known ingredients. While such technology may seem to be an impossible dream, reminiscent of the food replicators seen on Star Trek, recent innovative work has shown that developing familiar seeming foods from novel and unconventional ingredients may in fact be a realistic possibility (Bernstein 2005).