MetroWest Researchers Developing Food for Mars

By CHARLENE ARSENAULT (Patch Staff)

NATICK, MA -- Astronauts traveling to Mars have specific nutritional needs.

Researchers in the Combat Feeding Directorate, or CFD, at the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center, or NSRDEC, are working on projects for NASA to create food for astronauts at a space station and astronauts traveling to Mars, which was announced this week in a press release.

CFD was contacted by NASA, giving researchers a grant for a vitamin stabilization project. And in another project, the CFD is working to improve and reduce the weight and volume of a breakfast meal replacement bar, originally developed by NASA, which would also be used during Mars missions and at a space station.

“The work we have done on the vitamin stabilization project then generated NASA’s interest in us working on a meal replacement bar for the breakfast meal,” said Michelle Richardson, a senior food technologist at CFD, in a statement. “The astronaut and the warfighter are both in austere environments, and they both need to be sustained. They both need food that has to last for several years.”

CFD developed a blueberry granola bar and a chocolate hazelnut drink, and are working on breakfast bars that will be lighter and take up less volume.

Read the full release here.

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Photo via US Army