Technologies

How to Feed Astronauts Bound for Mars? Try Protein Made Out of Thin Air

It’s a long trip to the red planet and space is tight, but eating well could require just a few simple ingredients.

There are no grocery stores on Mars, and resupply from Earth is many months away. As much food as future astronauts to the red planet may pack for the trip, inevitably, they’ll have to create some food of their own in an inhospitable environment. Whether they go the fanciful farm-to-table route with locally sourced potatoes, like Matt Damon’s character did in the 2015 film The Martian, remains to be seen. But they may have an even more science-forward option.

Creating protein out of thin air.

That’s the goal of a partnership between the European Space Agency and a company called Solar Foods, formed out of a scientific research program less than a decade ago, which opened its first large-scale production facility in 2024.

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The project, dubbed HOBI-WAN (for “hydrogen oxidizing bacteria in weightlessness as a source of nutrition”) in a nod to the Star Wars movies, is an outer space version of a process that Solar Foods has been working on already here on Earth. That effort involves growing bacteria in a vat with water, air and nutrients, and then drying out the bacteria, turning them into a protein powder called Solein for human consumption.

A key next step will be to test Solein production on the International Space Station.

“Providing a sustainable and nutritious food supply which meets the energy requirements of the crew is one of the biggest challenges in human spaceflight exploration beyond low Earth orbit,” ESA said in a blog post. “In cases where pre-deployed food depots or continuous resupply missions from Earth are impractical, resource-heavy, or technically unfeasible, cost-effective alternatives are required.”

Making protein powder from air

The central goal of the HOBI-WAN project is to determine whether production of the protein-rich powder can take place in microgravity conditions.

The process is complex, but essentially it’ll be letting nature take its course.

“Solar Foods produces Solein by a process called gas fermentation,” Arttu Luukanen, the company’s senior vice president of space and defense, tells me. The gas fermentation process, he says, creates single-celled organisms that feed on hydrogen gas and use it to “sequester” carbon. From there, the bacteria are fed “minerals of life” such as ammonia as a nitrogen and hydrogen source.

All the ingredients go into a bioreactor along with water and gases that are pumped in “a bit like a big SodaStream,” Luukanen says. This provides the bacteria with the proper environment to reproduce, which they do very quickly. Once the bacteria have reproduced to a sufficient quantity, they’re harvested. Some of it is set aside to seed the next round in the bioreactor, while the rest is thoroughly dried and pasteurized.

These dried and pasteurized bacteria form the Solein product, which is composed of 78% protein, 6% fat (primarily unsaturated), 10% dietary fiber, 2% carbohydrates and 4% mineral nutrients. Luukanen says the powder can be flavored in any number of ways and on its own imparts “a very mild flavor of umami.”

But can it work in space?

Solein production will be harder to do in space. The weightless environment, plus the limited cargo capacity and reduced space for the bioreactor, add challenges that ESA and Solar Foods believe they can solve.

“[The] main difference for the experiment onboard the ISS is the lack of gravity, which means there is no buoyancy, which alters greatly how liquids and gases behave,” Luukanen says. The other challenge is limited physical space. Solar Foods uses bioreactors that can hold 20,000 liters or more, while the bioreactor heading to the ISS will be significantly smaller — a “few tens of liters.”

Extra steps will be required for gas safety, process monitoring, quality assurance and maintainability, as there won’t be bioprocess engineers on board to babysit the process. The product made in space also won’t be dried into a powder, at least not at the ISS. In the event of a leak, having a cloud of powder floating around in a zero-gravity environment wouldn’t be ideal.

So in space, Solein will likely be served up as a paste.

Reduce, reuse, recycle

The last big factor is the ingredients. They’ll have to be altered to account for the lack of resources available in a long-term space flight. Recycling has long been a key component of living in space, and that’ll be true for Solein production.

That means using CO2 from crew respiration and recycling the hydrogen gas made when the ISS uses electrolysis to turn water into oxygen for the crew. On Earth, making Solein requires a lot of water.

There will also be substitutions, such as using urea instead of ammonia, since ammonia would be dangerous if there were an accident. But that doesn’t mean that astronauts will be using urine like they do for “recycled coffee.”

“On Earth, we use ammonia, but for the ESA project, we’ve decided to use synthetic urea instead, mainly because it is not potentially hazardous like ammonia is if there is a spill,” Luukanen says. “Recovering the urea from urine is in principle possible, but given the small portion of urea needed, it may not make sense, especially if the urea extraction from urine involves complex and heavy equipment.”

How long could this process feed astronauts?

A trip to Mars is a much bigger time commitment than an excursion to the moon. NASA’s upcoming Artemis II mission will see astronauts circle the moon for the first time in nearly half a century, but the trip will last only 10 days. In terms of food, it’s not that big of a deal. For missions like Escapade, where two satellites will travel to Mars, the trip will take two years. Heading to the red planet, astronauts will need to pack more than a picnic.

Should the Solein project prove successful, the amount of food it generates could theoretically feed a team of astronauts for hundreds of days while using much less cargo space than today’s space meals. Luukanen says that, as the project is being designed, the only thing astronauts would need to carry would be mineral salts, and they wouldn’t need that much.

“Even for a five-[person] crew, 900-day mission to Mars, we are talking of [less than]100 kilograms of mineral salts,” he says.

Other technologies may also help recycle nitrogen and minerals, which would allow astronauts to reuse those materials onsite, further extending food supply.

Using the protein powder, astronauts could make all sorts of food with the right additional ingredients. Luukanen says Solar Foods has developed recipes ranging from ice cream to cream cheese ravioli. Some of them were showcased during NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge, which highlighted methods for long-term food solutions, including a no-light food-growing method called Nolux and a closed ecosystem that can autonomously grow food and maintain insects for use in an astronaut’s diet.

It might not be what you’d expect from a Michelin-starred restaurant or even your neighborhood deli, but it’ll likely be better than a steady diet of Mars-grown baked potatoes.

Technologies

Trump Maintains US‑Iran Negotiations Continue Amid Tehran’s Denials of Duplicity

President Trump insists that US‑Iran talks are ongoing despite Tehran’s denial of any negotiation plans, while warning that only a deal or total surrender will allow passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Conflicting statements from both sides have heightened uncertainty as the conflict enters its sixth month.

On Monday, President Donald Trump asserted that negotiations between the United States and Iran are still taking place, even after Tehran stated it has no intention of engaging in direct talks with Washington.

In a fiery Truth Social post, Trump labeled Iran’s leaders “unbelievably duplicitous,” claiming they are lying about ongoing peace talks “whether Iran wants to admit it or not.” He repeated his assertion that the United States completely controls the Strait of Hormuz, despite maritime traffic through the crucial route lingering at only a small fraction of pre‑conflict levels.

He wrote, “Nothing reaches Iran unless we allow it, and nothing will pass unless a deal—or total surrender—is achieved.”

Earlier that day, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei told reporters there is no imminent plan for U.S.–Iran negotiations, contradicting Trump’s earlier comment that talks would resume Monday afternoon. Baghaei added that Iran’s only current discussions are with Oman concerning the Strait of Hormuz.

The conflicting statements have heightened uncertainty over the peace‑talk process and the broader conflict, now in its sixth month.

Trump’s assertion about new negotiations came a day after he said on Truth Social that he had agreed to cancel a massive strike against Iran “subject to being able to rapidly make a DEAL.” He said in the same post that Iran and other Middle Eastern countries had asked him to hold off on that attack because “the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.”

Trump has claimed dozens of times throughout the more‑than‑five‑month‑long war that a deal is at hand. No permanent deal has been signed, and a temporary ceasefire reached in June has fallen apart.

Trump has also repeatedly threatened to launch devastating strikes against Iran before backing off. After the latest example, oil prices on Monday fell and stocks surged.

BMI, a research unit of Fitch Solutions, said in a note Monday that a broader diplomatic understanding on reopening the Strait of Hormuz is still achievable this quarter, while raising the probability of its escalation scenario to 35% from 25%, citing mounting military, diplomatic and economic signs of rising U.S.-Iran tensions.

“Diplomatic progress is likely to be punctuated by periodic military flare-ups, while miscalculation by either side could trigger a renewed escalation,” BMI analysts wrote in a note. The firm said the key issue to watch is the future governance of the strait, as the Iran-Oman talks — potentially backed by Gulf states, China and the U.S. — point to efforts to build a post-conflict shipping framework.

Shipping risks persist even as diplomacy appears to be advancing. The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations Centre said it received a report of an incident 20 nautical miles (23 miles) northeast of Khasab, Oman — at the mouth of the strait — with a tanker’s master reporting an explosion in close proximity to the vessel at about 20:37 UTC Sunday (4:37 pm ET). The vessel and crew were safe and authorities are investigating, UKMTO said, advising ships to transit with caution.

The proposal Trump announced over the weekend calls for the U.S. and Iran to return to negotiations and continue ironing out some of the thorny issues that had derailed diplomatic efforts, according to The Associated Press, citing a regional official involved in the mediation efforts.

The official said the proposal also includes a reopening of the Hormuz Strait and halting attacks across the region, including by Iranian-backed militias in Iraq on the Arab Gulf countries and Jordan.

The U.S., for its part, will end its naval blockade on Iran and allow Tehran to export its oil, the official said, adding that no deal has been reached, although the mediation efforts remained underway.

Trump’s weekend reversal has lowered the temperature after days of escalating attacks across the Gulf. Kuwait said Saturday that Iranian forces launched a wave of drones within its airspace, with its military destroying multiple aircraft after Iran targeted critical infrastructure in the country’s north.

A parallel track with Muscat is also advancing. Iranian diplomats said Tehran was close to reaching a new arrangement with Oman to manage shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a deal critical to preventing the war from escalating further, according to the Financial Times.

Iranian officials said negotiations over future management of the Hormuz Strait with Oman, which sits on the opposite shore of the waterway, are in their final stages. The agreed shipping route would be different from those used before, according to Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Baghaei, adding that the new route was separate from the issue of the strait’s reopening or continued closure.

Technologies

Oil Prices Slide as Trump Halts Planned Iran Strike

Oil prices dropped after Trump cancelled a planned strike on Iran, with WTI down about 5% and Brent near 5% lower. He said the move followed requests from Tehran and regional allies for a pause while a deal shaping the Strait of Hormuz and Iran’s nuclear program is negotiated.

Oil prices fell on Monday after President Donald Trump announced he had cancelled a planned strike on Iran. WTI futures dropped roughly 5% to $80.34 a barrel, while Brent slipped about 4.7% to $83.77 a barrel.

Trump said early Sunday he called off the strike after Iran and several Middle Eastern nations asked him to hold off, noting that the outlines of a deal had been agreed upon. He added that the prospective accord would entail the immediate, full opening of the Strait of Hormuz and an end to Iran’s nuclear ambitions, according to his Truth Social post.

The president had been considering another round of strikes as diplomatic hopes waned since the conflict began on February 28. He said the U.S. and Iran would meet for talks on Monday, but Iran denied any scheduled negotiations with Washington, citing PressTV. Iran’s foreign‑ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei clarified that Tehran was only discussing shipping routes through the Strait of Hormuz with Oman. In a follow‑up Truth Social message, Trump insisted that, regardless of Iran’s acknowledgment, the United States is indeed discussing a solution to a long‑standing problem created by Iran.

Technologies

Oil Prices Drop as Trump Cancels Planned Attack on Iran

Oil prices fell sharply after President Trump announced the cancellation of a planned strike on Iran, citing a new deal that would open the Hormuz Strait and end Iran’s nuclear threat.

Oil prices fell sharply on Monday after President Donald Trump announced that he had called off a planned strike on Iran.

West Texas Intermediate futures, the U.S. benchmark, slipped roughly 5% to close at $80.34 per barrel, while Brent crude, the international benchmark, declined 4.7% to settle at $83.77 a barrel.

Trump made the announcement early Sunday, saying he had canceled the strike following requests from Tehran and other Middle Eastern countries.

In a Truth Social post, he wrote: “We have just been asked by Iran, and other Middle Eastern Countries, to hold off any attack in that the perimeters of a deal has been agreed to.”

The president indicated that the proposed agreement would include the immediate, complete, and total opening of the Hormuz Strait, as well as an end to Iran’s nuclear threat.

Trump had been weighing additional strikes amid diminishing prospects for a diplomatic resolution to the conflict that began on Feb. 28. He stated that the U.S. and Iran would hold negotiations on Monday.

Tehran denied that talks were planned with Washington, according to state news outlet PressTV.

Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran was only holding talks with Oman regarding the routes ships can use through the Strait of Hormuz.

In a subsequent Truth Social post, Trump added that whether “Iran wants to admit it or not, we are, in fact, talking of a solution to a problem that they have caused for decades.”