NASA to astronauts: Eat sh!t
I actually really liked Marmite until about four minutes ago, when I read this CNet story about NASA-funded research into a process for converting human poop into a space food–food that one scientist, who has already tried it, compared to the tangy toast-spread beloved by Brits.
The idea is to take nutrients out of waste substances (the researchers, based at Penn State, used synthetic substitutes rather than actual turds) and then combine them with microbes in order to grow food sources during long space missions. If successful, this process could one day become a sustainable alternative to the current practice of dumping astronauts’ space dumps into the Earth’s atmosphere–where they literally become flaming piles of shit before burning up.
While you contemplate subsisting on a food product generated from something you’d otherwise flush, I will ponder what it means that this is the second butt-related science research I’ve written up in the past hour.
Fast Company , Read Full Story
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