Stored meats, tomatoes and even onions can’t last a few weeks let alone a seven-to-10 month journey to Mars but Australian scientists say artificial intelligence may help bridge the 225 million kilometre gap.

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[G]overnment-funded research centre Plants for Space launched in October and is aiming to produce food suitable for consumption during long-term missions to the stars. It has until 2030 – the next time humans are scheduled to rocket to the moon – to come up with the right stuff but is also investigating how to fulfil the dietary requirements of NASA’s 2040 Mars launch.

Genetically modifying and gene-editing foods could be a solution, according to Plants for Space investigator Associate Professor Sigfredo Fuentes.

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“We are looking into how to reduce food waste and try to increase the usability of 100 per cent of the resources we have,” Prof Fuentes says. “In really harsh environments like the desert, Antarctica, war-torn countries as well underground, using vertical farming, all those problems are … being solved from our way of thinking on how to produce food in space.”

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