If humans are to live on the Moon and Mars one day, we will have to find ways to grow our own food, including making artificial meat for food stocks.
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) will soon be able to enjoy delicious steaks, if they can perfect the technology of cultivating artificial meat from beef cells under microgravity.
Quoted from the Daily Mail, Tuesday (12/4/2022) it is just one of the scientific experiments carried out by three amateur astronauts who will be launched into the orbital observatory today for NASA's first space tourism mission.
Canadian investor and philanthropist Mark Pathy, US entrepreneur Larry Connor and former Israeli Air Force pilot Eytan Stibbe are reported to have paid $55 million each for the trip.
During their eight-day stay on the ISS, the trio will strive to produce meat that is as tender and juicy as one would buy at a butcher on Earth.
That's because part of the payload that will launch into space, takes along beef cells to grow under microgravity, and turn into muscle tissue like that found in steak.
The Israeli food technology company behind the idea, Aleph Farms, is a pioneer in cultivating laboratory-grown beef steaks.
In 2019, the company produced the world's first 3D-bioprinted ribeye steak, and in September of that year it was also involved in successfully growing artificial meat in space for the first time.
The world's first 3D-bioprinted ribeye steak. Photo: Aleph Farms
On this occasion, scientists, with the help of Stibbe at the ISS, will attempt to produce steaks without the aid of bioprinting, instead of simply multiplying and differentiating beef cells as part of a natural process.
Head of space research at Aleph Farms Dr Zvika Tamari said their company had two goals: to provide steaks to space travelers on the Moon or Mars, and to develop a cheap beef market on Earth.
"To produce steak from real beef, you have to raise the cows for 2-3 years, feed them a lot, you need a lot of land, a lot of fresh water and natural resources," he said.
"We can produce a delicious, nutritious and delicious steak anywhere, even in the most remote places in about three weeks, and places as far away as outer space with harsh environments without natural resources," he continued.
Dr Tamari then explained how the process of artificial meat was made. Scientists take the cow cells needed, then grow them in a bio reactor. These cells then proliferate and diversify the cellular mass.
"This then converts them into the different types of cells that are in steak, which are muscle cells especially adipose or fat cells and collagen cells that are very elastic. We take the cells that we grow and make them into tissue that resembles the steak you normally eat. That's what we will do it on the ISS," he explained.
Dr Tamari said the space industry was undergoing considerable change with the privatization of space activities and the rise of companies founded by billionaires such as SpaceX and Blue Origin.
In the future, we will see more space missions launch. For example, NASA has an Artemis mission to the Moon at the end of this decade, a long-term vision of establishing a human base on the surface of the Moon, and a trip to Mars. Aleph Farms is positioning itself to supply astronauts with food as part of a NASA mission.
Dr Tamari said his company's technology could allow people living on the Moon or embarking on a nine-month journey to Mars to make delicious and nutritious fresh steaks, complete with all the minerals and vitamins they could possibly need.
Currently, he said, it is very expensive to transport fresh food to the ISS from Earth. Transporting it into space is nearly impossible, meaning science would have to find a solution for humans to feed themselves on such a mission.