Meet the Seattle Chef Competing in NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge

On April 16, Seattle chef Younger Cho was internet hosting an important Zoom assembly and wasn’t fairly certain what to put on. Among the many folks on the decision was retired NASA veteran Herb Baker, a former provide contractor for the Johnson House Heart in Houston whose illustrious profession earned him a spot within the U.S. House Work Corridor of Honor. Cho wished to recruit Baker to be a part of his group for a NASA-sanctioned contest known as the Deep House Meals Problem, which goals to search out revolutionary options for feeding astronauts. Feeling the necessity to break the ice a bit, Cho determined to dig up an astronaut onesie he as soon as purchased as a Halloween costume and hopped on the decision with a Zoom background full of stars. “It cracked Herb up,” says the chef.

The onesie labored. Baker turned an advisor for the Cho-led crew, dubbed Advert Astra. “I’m primarily the circus chief,” says Cho, who discovered in regards to the contest whereas passing time on the social media app Clubhouse in early 2021 because the pandemic slowed his Asian Tex-Mex catering enterprise, Phorale, and delayed plans to open a White Heart restaurant. After connecting with the Methuselah Basis, a nonprofit serving to coordinate the problem, Cho began placing collectively a full squad, Ocean’s Eleven-style. Amongst among the different consultants who joined have been naturopath Christopher Daugherty and Ronaldo Linares, a former marine and personal chef for skilled athletes.

The essential puzzle Cho and the others wanted to resolve was how finest to feed astronauts on years-long journeys to Mars and again. That features not simply offering them with sufficient vitamins to outlive, but in addition “the right way to hold their psychological state intact” with meals that’s palatable and may endure publicity to radiation and different excessive situations. “We’ve got diet requirements, however astronauts additionally need the meals to style good, and with longer-duration house missions, it must have a [longer] shelf life,” says Shaneequa Vereen, public affairs officer for NASA. “Hopefully we’ll see what we will remedy.”

Advert Astra submitted its proposal in time for the late July deadline. If the group is chosen for the Deep House Problem shortlist, it might be in line to obtain round $25,000 to assist execute its imaginative and prescient in a extra detailed format. As much as 20 U.S. groups will transfer on to the following part within the problem in September. If Cho’s squad goes all the way in which and takes the last word prize, it could not solely resolve what astronauts eat on future missions into house, however might assist launch a extra sustainable meals future right here on Earth.

When the challenge started, Cho had little or no data of what it might take to make a dish viable for house. However as a chef with a few years of expertise in sourcing completely different sorts of elements, he introduced a bonus that he felt different rivals within the problem might not possess. “There are groups which will attain for the celebrities, making an attempt to give you proposals round stuff like vertical rising know-how or cricket farms,” he says. “We felt that it’s higher to not reinvent the wheel — let’s attempt to enhance what astronauts are already consuming at NASA house packages.”

With analysis and assist from Baker, who had examined many pre-space flight meals in his 40 years working for NASA, the Advert Astra group discovered that astronauts “eat a variety of crap,” Cho says. The meals on the Worldwide House Station tends to be on the essential aspect and consists of snacks like peanut M&Ms as a result of they’re compact, present some protein, and are comparatively sturdy.

Vereen says there may be all kinds of merchandise out there to astronauts on the station, both developed by NASA’s Meals Lab or outsourced. However she confirms that a variety of meals isn’t a lot completely different from what civilians purchase in shops, with some business merchandise that meet NASA’s requirements, whether or not it’s tuna or rooster in pouches, and even some cookies and crackers. “We’ve got over 250 menu objects for crews [for the International Space Station] to select from, they usually do undergo a style check earlier than they fly, the place the crew will get to decide on their meals: ‘I like this, I need extra of this; much less of that,’ that type of factor,” says Vereen. “All their drinks are mainly powdered mixes, together with espresso, which must be rehydrated.” Resupply convoys sometimes ship particular objects together with different cargo, whether or not it’s Thanksgiving treats or contemporary produce. NASA can also be engaged on the viability of rising vegetables and fruit in house.

However for longer house missions, NASA must develop meals objects with an prolonged shelf life. Based on the Deep House Problem’s introductory info, lower than 10 p.c of the present NASA meals lab menu is viable for journeys to Mars. “Astronauts would mainly be spending months sucking on a toothpaste tube full of beet powder,” says Cho. “There’s no approach that won’t get outdated.”

The group additionally needed to issue within the unbelievable toll house journey takes on the physique. Due to the adjustments in atmospheric stress and different elements, astronauts typically lose a way of scent and style, since an absence of gravity retains nasal fluids from draining correctly. So meals primarily appears bland, it doesn’t matter what the elements are (the preferred condiment utilized by U.S. astronauts is sizzling sauce, and Vereen says freeze-dried shrimp cocktail with horseradish is a well-loved merchandise). And that’s to not point out the opposite bodily unwanted side effects that include spending an prolonged period of time in a vacuum. “These are like some high-performance, very costly athletes coming again to the world with house anemia, bone density loss, testosterone within the dumps, a wide range of various things,” says Daugherty.

When pondering an astronaut meals answer that may handle each the problems of nutrient loss and taste monotony, Cho referred to a survey performed by the Bionutrient Meals Affiliation (a company that Daugherty co-founded and continues to have a task with as a strategic advisor) that purported to search out huge variances within the U.S. meals system between the dietary content material from produce at bigger companies versus smaller farms. Contemplating that NASA astronauts get their meals from most of the similar huge personal corporations as common residents who store at supermarkets, Cho noticed a serious flaw to repair. “There’s no testing or accountability,” he says.

Naomi Ok. Fukagawa, director of the Beltsville Human Diet Analysis Heart at the US Division of Agriculture, doesn’t dispute that there might be huge variances in dietary content material from what folks purchase on the grocery retailer, however cautions on drawing broader conclusions based mostly on small pattern sizes and restricted testing that’s not peer-reviewed. Fukagawa additionally emphasised that it’s vital to take into context the complete dietary wants of every particular person. “Steadiness and selection are key; sustainability and lowering environmental influence must be a part of the equation,” Fukagawa says. She additionally praises what the Advert Astra group has been making an attempt to perform: “We’d like extra innovators who aren’t afraid to strive new issues,” notably on the subject of offering diet in a approach that’s not simply environment friendly, however extra flavorful. “If they’ll transfer the needle, that may be nice.”

To that finish, Cho and the crew set about making an attempt to develop one-to-one nutrient-dense substitutions for the meals that astronauts usually eat, together with reverse-engineering the peanut M&M to not solely have sufficient shelf life for deep house missions (round three to 5 years) but in addition to remove any fillers. “We wished to search out the suitable elements that may prepare dinner effectively, maintain effectively, and maintain their vitamins,” says Linares, whose expertise cooking for 1000’s of marines and creating menus for skilled athletes got here in useful.

Advert Astra additionally labored on a mac and cheese alternative utilizing breadfruit flour as a substitute of wheat (breadfruit is a starchy fruit indigenous to Southeast Asia), and a sizzling sauce utilizing sustainable and clear sourcing of assorted peppers (starting from delicate to extraordinarily sizzling on the Scoville chart). “Astronauts are just like the Michael Jordan of house,” Linares says. “And also you want vitamins to have the ability to carry out, however you then even have to determine it might be reheated within the particular ovens they use with restricted water.”

Each meals merchandise the group created has some type of a vitamin-infusion factor to it, one thing that Daugherty, together with his 20 years within the discipline of naturopathy, felt he was well-equipped to assist execute. As a substitute of meals coloring and different fillers, Advert Astra went for extra “phytochemically sound” elements, says Daugherty, describing compounds produced primarily by vegetation. With the intention to be certain that the meals was preserved correctly, the group dried it in such a approach as to forestall oxidation.

However the full menu nonetheless wanted to return into focus. Cho (who’s Korean American) and Linares (with Colombian and Cuban heritage) say it was vital to usher in extra cultural range that may match astronauts from all backgrounds. “Fifteen months right into a mission and also you’re consuming fucking bullshit, what would it’s essential stick with it? Actually consuming a slice of dwelling would possibly assist,” Cho says. “Like I might love a dumpling.”

Cho notes that it has at all times been potential to create extra culturally various provisions (the Russians have borscht and tinned fish as a part of their house program), however it’s a matter of taking the time to develop them. “[Young and I] type of perceive these deep taste notes and mixtures of elements,” says Linares. “Not all astronauts are white, you already know: They’re completely different races. So should you’re in a position to recreate the meals they’re conversant in, I feel it’ll be particular for them to have the ability to really feel like they’re nonetheless grounded.” For NASA’s half, Vereen says that the Meals Lab “is wanting into” making a extra various menu of worldwide dishes.

Advert Astra hopes that the group members’ experiences with several types of cuisines (house bibimbap, maybe?), in addition to the science behind creating extra nutrient-dense merchandise, will set them aside when the problem’s judges analyze their work. Additionally they are optimistic that the proposal’s potential purposes to extra Earth-centric endeavors resonate, too. “It’s actually in regards to the merchandise we will create for shoppers in underserved communities,” says Cho, who has taken a tough have a look at what meals sustainability actually means for his personal Seattle-based enterprise. His still-in-the-works White Heart restaurant Phorale Method settled on a farm-to-table strategy in 2020 after Cho noticed the rising costs of mass-produced meats together with empty cabinets at grocery shops through the pandemic.

On a sensible stage, adapting what Advert Astra is proposing to terrestrial makes use of means extra unbiased diet analysis, which is one thing the group was in a position to do with the assistance of Stephan van Vliet, a metabolomics researcher at Duke College (and a fellow marketing consultant, together with Baker). Each merchandise of meals went by means of a rigorous testing course of to make sure that it was delivering a excessive stage of vitamins; the group additionally calculated degradation charges and shelf stability for the ultimate merchandise. The sort of testing is usually costly; Fukagawa says an intensive dietary evaluation for a single batch of meals can value tens of 1000’s of {dollars}. However Cho’s group hopes the food-processing strategies they developed for the competition are scalable, with the goal of adapting them in some type for communities which have restricted entry to nutritious meals or dwell in areas particularly susceptible to the impacts of local weather change.

Advert Astra not too long ago ended the primary part of the problem by submitting its proposal, which incorporates the conceptual thought, a full deck, and a paper. In September, the Deep House Problem organizers will choose 20 groups from the U.S., 20 from Canada, and 20 others from around the globe to maneuver into part two, together with a $25,000 stipend to create a kitchen demonstration in entrance of consultants. Part three will contain warehouse house to place any prototypes into observe.

However Cho was cautious to not get too forward of himself. It’s already been an extended 18 months dealing not solely with the fallout from the pandemic on his enterprise but in addition dealing with a latest hearth in White Heart that burned down his girlfriend’s under-construction boba store, which he was serving to to construct. Advert Astra was a “ardour challenge” that supplied him with objective and prevented him from “going to a darkish path.” The top end result is probably not clear, however he and the opposite members concerned already really feel they’ve completed a fantastic deal. “It’s not a clout or ego factor,” Cho says. “It’s simply completely different — I by no means thought I’d be concerned in one thing like this.”