The first men who traveled to the moon during the Apollo missions subsist based on lyophilized food and sweet or salty jelly -coated cubes. The thing has not gone better over the years. But if the French succeed, astronauts from lunar missions can eat fresh fish.
Lubinas raised in the Moon. That is the objective of Lunar Hatch, a rocambolesco scientific project that is already underway in a fish farm by Palavas-Le-Flots, to the south of France.
The fish that raise in this small center are not any lubins, but the founding generation of the futures “Aquanautas” lunares. Its offspring will travel to space in the form of fertilized eggs in order to establish the first extraterrestrial fish farm.
High quality protein. If we are going to establish a permanent base on the moon, what less than to give us the taste of dinner a fresh lubina. The brain behind this project is Cyrille Przybyla, a researcher at the French National Institute for Oceanic Research.
“Fish is an excellent source of protein, because it is the animal body that we best digest and contains omega 3 and vitamins B important that astronauts will need to maintain their muscle mass,” Przybyla told The Guardian. The question, which he poses, is not whether we need it, but “how we can produce these foods at so much distance.”
Lunar Hatch. The experiment, financed by the European Space Agency (ESA) and the National Space Studies Center of France (CNES), will send the eggs to the space calculating the time it takes to hatch upon reaching its destination.
Although an assigned space flight does not yet have, the idea is to perform the first tests at the International Space Station, assisted by European astronauts in orbit. After observing their development, the eggs would be frozen and returned to the earth for an exhaustive analysis. If the tests are successful, the next step would be to climb the system for a future implementation on the Moon.
Not the first fish, yes the first fish. We have already seen fish in space. The first were small Mummichogs in an Apollo mission in 1973. More recently, Cebra fish have helped study muscle atrophy.
But this is the first time that the goal is purely gastronomic: create a source of regular and renewable food for astronauts and crew of future lunar and Martian bases. The first space fish.
This is not (alone) of nutrition. The true mill of Lunar Hatch is to create a completely closed and self -sufficient ecosystem, without waste, exempt from continuously replenishing food with load flights from the earth to end up eating crickets.
Everything is recycled within a fish farming system that should be autonomous for at least four or five months. Of course, many “Aquanautas” will be needed. Scientists have calculated that to provide two weekly fish to seven astronauts, about 200 lubins would be needed.
Image | Lfremer
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