Space Diet: Daily Mealworm (Tenebrio molitor) Harvest on a Multigenerational Spaceship

Ruth Sang Jones

Abstract


It has been proposed in recent years that insects are a viable food source that should be seriously considered for the future. Their high nutritional value, small size and rapid reproduction are also promising for space agriculture. In this paper, a possible future Multi-generational Spaceship with sufficient interior room to have an insect breeding room is considered. The insect of interest here is the mealworm (Tenebrio molitor), which has a very high protein content. The daily mealworm harvest aboard such a ship that satisfies the protein requirement of a stable crew population of 160 is approximated here to be ~162,000.  There is also qualitative discussion of other considerations for a spaceship mealworm colony.


Keywords


Health; Biology; Metabolism; Nutrition; Mealworm; Spaceship

Full Text:

PDF

References


FAO. (2013). Edible insects Future prospects for food and feed security. Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations: http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e01.pdf [Accessed 02/03/2015]

Katayama, N. et al., (2009) Insects for space agriculture and sustainable foods web on earth. In RAST 2009 - Proceedings of 4th International Conference on Recent Advances Space Technologies. pp. 53–55.

Mealworm Care.org (2015) Life Cycle: http://mealwormcare.org/life-cycle/ [Accessed 02/03/2015]

BBC News (2014) China: Volunteers test worm diet for Astronauts: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-27515900 [Accessed 02/03/2015]

Kondo, Y. (2003) Interstellar Travel and Multi-generation Space Ships, Apogee Books. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=iDgqAQAAIAAJ

Institute of Medicine (2005) Dietary reference intakes for energy, carbohydrate, fiber, fat, fatty acids, cholesterol, protein, and amino acids (macronutrients). Washington, DC. Available at: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?isbn=0309085373

Smith, S.M., Zwart, S.R. & Kloeris, V. (2009) Space Science, Exploration and Policies: Nutritional Biochemistry of Space Flight. New York, NY, USA: Nova Science Publishers, Incorporated.

Rumpold, B.A. & Schluter, O.K. (2013) Nutritional composition and safety aspects of edible insects. Molecular Nutrition & Food Research. 57, 802–823.

Men's Health UK. (n.d.) The World's best protein sources. http://www.menshealth.co.uk/food-nutrition/muscle-foods/the-worlds-best-protein-sources-313853 [Accessed 02/03/2015].

BirdCare.com.au. (2008) Mealworms: http://birdcare.com.au/mealworms.htm [Accessed 02/03/2015]


Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.