Mechanical Engineer Anjan Contractor Will Help NASA 3D-Print Food For Space Travel

Nerds among us will remember Star Trek's famous “replicator”, using which Captain Picard could order tea. In an attempt to bringing future in the present, Anjan Contractor, a mechanical engineer by profession is all set to start 3D printing the food. Yeah, the pizza and the chocolates. And you're thinking it right, this means that we will have an alternative solution for putting an end to the world hunger issue. NASA has funded Contractor’s company, Systems & Materials Research Corporation (SMRC), with a $125,000 grant to create a prototype of his universal food synthesizer. It seems, NASA has figured out that astronauts could use some of this food on their spaceships in long space missions. Interesting, isn't it?

So, not just world hunger or space-time food, with the use of this 3D Food printer, we will also solve the lingering problem of food waste. Because this engineer has envisioned a day when we will able to buy cartridges of powder and oils from a grocery store and create nutritionally-appropriate meals created one layer at a time. How so? Well, the powder used in this system will be shelf-stable for up to 30 years, so that each cartridge would be fully exhausted before being returned to the store. I can't resist but quote Mr. Contractor's words, when he says, "If eating something spat out by the same kind of 3D printers that are currently being used to make everything from jet engine parts to fine art doesn’t sound too appetizing, that’s only because you can currently afford the good stuff." He adds, “I think, and many economists think, that current food systems can’t supply 12 billion people sufficiently. So we eventually have to change our perception of what we see as food.”