Space miso and moon glass

Extraterrestrial fermentation If there is a future where people regularly travel through space, what will they eat ? Today’s astronaut food, although a novelty for those of us with our feet firmly planted on Earth, is not particularly appetizing. Maggie Coblentz , research affiliate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, thinks fermented foods could provide a nutritious—and tasty—addition to an extraterrestrial diet. People around the world have eaten fermented food since time immemorial . Curious how astronauts might leverage that history, Coblentz was thrilled when the opportunity to send a fermentation experiment to the International Space Station (ISS) arose. The project was ripe for collaboration, and Coblentz reached out to sustainable food researcher Joshua Evans of the Technical University of Denmark for his expertise in the evolution of fermented foods on Earth. Together, the team selected miso—a fermented paste made from soybeans—to send to space. In early 2020, the team