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Space Crop Menus for Astronaut Nutrition That Surpass Martian Biomanufacturing Bioplastic Needs After Waste Digestion

by Jithran N. Wainwright Ekanayake, Soumyajit Sen Gupta, Harsh Soni, Christian P. Nielsen, Pratap C. Pullammanappallil, Amor A. Menezes, and Ana D. Martin-Ryals

Posted: March 31, 2026
Server: Preprints.org
DOI: 10.20944/preprints202603.2363.v1

Martian missions call for renewable supply chains of the 3D-printable bioplastic polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB). Because food waste can be anaerobically digested into methane and then bacterially converted into PHB, we analyzed the possible coupling between food waste produced from exploration life support (ELS) crop cultivation and the space biomanufacturing process of PHB generation. We designed 45,116 nutritionally complete menus from 23 ELS crops, calculated how much PHB demand each menu attains after its crop waste is converted into PHB (loop closure), evaluated menu crop cultivation and PHB generation costs using the equivalent system mass (ESM) metric, and contrasted ESM cost with that of existing Mars menus, which include shipped foods. We demonstrate that our menus meet astronaut macronutrient and energy requirements, yield up to 10 times the daily PHB required for a 600-day crewed Mars mission, and have 19-32% lower ESM cost per unit loop closure than previous Mars menus.

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