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

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. 

Don't ...