Exploring Viability of Insects as Martian Diet
With advances in the aerospace industry on powerful, giant reusable rockets, human spaceflight will soon be possible much farther and more often than now. By the next decade, we will probably be ready to send the first humans to Mars. This trip will last two Earth years, during which astronauts will need to nourish themselves with only what they can bring from Earth and what they can grow in space. With the limited energy and resources of a spaceship headed for Mars, insects can easily provide protein needs for astronauts in deep space. I measure the resource consumption of various insect farms to determine the viability of sending the necessary mass to Mars to sustain an edible insect colony.