Learn about the problems scientist face with food on the space craft that will carry astronauts to Mars

The issue of food is very simple. An average human being consumes about 2.5 pounds of food in which .3 pounds is converted into solid waste. For the Mars mission, one human being would have consumed 913.125 pounds of food and produced 109.575 pounds of solid waste. Eventhough that solid waste can be vented to outer space, the numbers give us an idea of how much waste one can produce.

Saving weight for food can be extremely difficult. Unlike water and air, it can not be converted into something a human desperately needs. However, it can turn to fertilizer and if we are going to grow plants on our space crafts, that fertilizer can be used to help the plants grow faster and healthier. Another way our astronauts can save weight is by simply creating food aboard the space craft. They can carry varios seeds that do not weight much. By adding wastes such as carbon dioxide and solid waste, they can be grown to edible food. This way, large amounts of weight can be reserved for other payloads.