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Looking Back and Ahead on Materials and Technologies of Food Packaging for NASA Space Missions

Robert Trey Evans*

From carefully documented research by those in the field of science, to day-to-day observations by those of the general public, it's evident: earth's climate is indeed changing, and for the worse. Temperatures across the globe, the sea level, natural disasters as each one of these steadily increase and negatively impact all our lives in various ways, it's equally evident that solutions to handling these changes collectively called “Climate Change” need to be found, which one in particular being taken into consideration is outer space. Thoughts of making outer space a new home for society and venturing to planets miles upon miles away from earth with the intent of inhabiting them too are certainly possible for us humans, given the astounding progress the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has made over the years; however, one major hurdle NASA has to overcome in turning those possibilities into reality is their food system. Briefly explaining what a food system is, it's a system comprised of people and their interactions with one other in relation to the food chain, which this is the growing and harvesting of foods, the making safe of them for consumption through processing, then transporting to other processing plants or retailers, selling them, and finally, eating and disposing of them. Returning to NASA's food system, the problem with it is that it will only last for about 18 months in space's environment that's truly unique with its hazards like cosmic rays, solar radiation, and microgravity. Knowing this, NASA, and others through partnerships, has been carrying out a number of studies on their food system, with studies spanning subject matters of how the system's food is grown and processed, to how the system's food is packaged the topic of this paper written as a literature review. At that, this literature review has three objectives: one, to take readers through, and discuss, the major materials and technologies used by NASA in the packaging of foods for space missions, starting with those during the 1960s-1970s; two, to do the same for those during the 1980s-2000s; and three, to do the same, one last time, with materials and technologies being developed and considered for use in future NASA space missions.