Dream job? Live in a capsule in Hawaii eating astronaut food.

Has it always been your dream to live like an astronaut without actually going into space? Now is your chance. Scientists at Cornell and the University of Hawaii are looking for participants for a study on nutrition in space.

|
NASA/Reuters/Handout
Crew members onboard the International Space Station share a meal in the Unity node of the orbiting laboratory in this NASA handout photo taken in 2009.

If you’ve always dreamed of being an astronaut here’s the next best thing, and the location couldn’t be more idyllic. Scientists from Cornell and the University of Hawaii are conducting a 120-day Mars exploration analog study in a simulated Mars habitat on the lava fields of the Big Island of Hawai’i. The study will focus on the diets of six volunteers, who will be required to live and work like astronauts, including suiting up in space gear whenever they head outside of their habitat. But the emphasis will be for participants compare two types of foods: crew-cooked vs. pre-prepared, in order to avoid what has been termed “menu fatigue” over a long-duration mission. Applications are currently being taken for the job.
 
Jean Hunter, associate professor of biological and environmental engineering at Cornell and several colleagues have received a $947,000 NASA grant for the study, the Hawaii Space Exploration Analogue & Simulation, or HI-SEAS. Hunter said current astronauts on the International Space Station not only tire of eating foods they normally enjoy but also tend to eat less, which can put them at risk for nutritional deficiency, loss of bone and muscle mass, and reduced physical capabilities. Plus, all foods decline in nutritional quality over time, and only a few of the many available astronaut foods have the three-to-five-year shelf life required for a Mars mission.

So, the participants will also help determine how being on a landed mission on Mars would make different ways of cooking — and perhaps gardening — possible, which would give the astronauts more food variety and relieve menu fatigue.

So, the study will help determine the palatability of ‘instant’ foods and food prepared by the crew from shelf stable ingredients, and determine whether food acceptability changes over time. It will also help estimate use of crew time, power, and water for meal preparation and cleanup, for both instant and crew-cooked foods and determine if crewmembers’ taste and smelling acuity change over time.

Participants chosen will need to attend a workshop and two-week training mission. Round trip travel, food and lodging expenses are provided. The crew will receive $5,000 as compensation. The researchers said the qualifications for people applying for the study are similar to those required by NASA for their astronaut applicants.

Hurry, as the deadline is 11:59pm Hawaii time on February 29th, 2012. You can find more information and the application form at the HI-SEAS website. You can also check out their Facebook page.

Good luck (Pomaika`i)!

Nancy Atkinson is Universe Today's Senior Editor. She also is the host of the NASA Lunar Science Institute podcast and works with the Astronomy Cast and 365 Days of Astronomy podcasts. Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador.

Connect with Nancy on Facebook | Twitter | Google + | Website

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Dream job? Live in a capsule in Hawaii eating astronaut food.
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2012/0227/Dream-job-Live-in-a-capsule-in-Hawaii-eating-astronaut-food
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe