Mars mission to be simulated to find best menus for trip

ITHACA, N.Y. -- Life may exist in some form on Mars. Well-stocked supermarkets don't.

So if astronauts someday head there in what's estimated would be a three-year mission — roughly six months travel each way, plus two years on the planet — what they'd take to eat would be among the concerns.

To figure the cheapest and easiest ways to give astronauts well-rounded meals that they wouldn't eventually tire of, a group of Cornell University and University of Hawaii-Manoa researchers are looking for a half-dozen volunteers to spend four months next year living in a simulated Mars base on a Hawaii lava flow.

The study is part of a three-year project sponsored by NASA. Data from the simulation will be used to look at menu fatigue and the economics of finding the easiest things to transport.

"It's important to keep astronauts eating well," says Jean Hunter, Cornell professor of biological and environmental engineering. "It goes to mission success and astronaut safety."

The volunteers will live essentially like astronauts, Hunter says. They'll dress in simulated spacesuits — hazardous material suits instead of heavier and more cumbersome spacesuits. They'll take a mix of the prepared foods NASA astronauts eat today and some shelf-stable foods, such as flour, sugar and freeze-dried meats, for making their own meals.

NASA currently has no plans for a Mars mission, though it's developing a rocket for deep-space distances, such as the moon or Mars, spokesman J.D. Harrington says. It also has a research projects underway that look at other issues related to long spaceflights, such as radiation exposure and eyesight problems astronauts often develop, he says.

The site of the study hasn't been determined, though there are a number of locations in Hawaii that are "quite Mars-like in various ways," says Kim Binstead, co-investigator at the University of Hawaii-NASA Astrobiology Institute. "We need a site that is very low on vegetation, visually isolated, visually Mars-like and very stark."

Volunteers, Hunter says, should be mostly scientists or engineers and "people who are congenial or easygoing, without a whole lot of prickles — people who are interested in food, who know how to cook. And people who are healthy."

Those chosen will go to Cornell this summer to train preparing meals with the given supplies, Hunter says. There'll be a two-week dry run before the four-month experiment "to make sure everyone gets along and the equipment works," she says.

The deadline for applying is Feb. 29. To apply, go to manoa.hawaii.edu/hi-seas. Researchers say they'll make their choices by the end of May.