NASA to Earthlings: Help us farm Mars.
The nation's space agency has launched an international competition to help feed astronauts stationed on Mars, asking for a two-week meal plan to feed an undetermined number of people. Winners can take home a $750,000 prize, as long as they're U.S. citizens.
The competition, known officially as "Mars to Table" ‒ evoking the foodie phrase "farm to table" ‒ asks participants to design a system for growing and producing food on the Red Planet. Organizers say they want to use what they learn from this competition to help both Mars astronauts and people still on Earth.
"By designing food systems that operate reliably under extreme constraints, Mars to Table highlights approaches that reduce dependence on fragile supply chains, maximize resource efficiency, and enable food production where traditional systems fall short," competition organizers said in an announcement. "In doing so, the challenge bridges space exploration with Earth’s most demanding food challenges."
President Donald Trump has vowed that an American will be the first person to set foot on Mars, and has outlined an ambitious project to return astronauts to the Moon in two years, and to begin building a permanent nuclear-powered lunar outpost by 2030. A mission to test out some of that technology, Artemis II, is scheduled to launch sometime in the next several months.
