Astronauts in future would not need to eat all the tasteless foods, but now they can make their own food.Mechanical engineer Anjan Contractor won a $125,000 grant last year to build a prototype 3D printer designed to print food for astronauts on long missions from NASA . Contractor's goal was to print a pizza with his open-source RepRap Mendel 3D printer — and it looks like he succeeded.
"Nasa wanted something that had longer shelf life, that offered personalised nutrition, [and] was suitable for [astronauts] who might have different physiological needs," explained Contractor on stage, who detailed how his modified British-designed RepRap 3D printer prototype functioned.
"When astronauts press a button a little powder goes to a mixing chamber, water gets added, then it's pushed to the print heads," he explained, adding that "it takes seven minutes to print a pizza".
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| Anjan Contractor |
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