A 25-year-old computer science graduate student has won NASA’s top prize of $300,000 for developing an innovativefood system designed to help astronauts eat nutritious, familiar meals during long missions to Mars.
Chinyere “Chichi” Ukeje, originally from Bowie, Maryland, and now living in Northeast Philadelphia, took first place in NASA’s Deep Space Food Challenge: Mars to Table competition with her project, Adaptive Nourishment Infrastructure (ANI).
Her proposal combines food production technologies with a practical approach to preparing meals: astronauts would use portable electric lunch boxes to heat nutritious food cubes and turn them into everyday dishes, including themed meals such as “taco night” and “Italian pasta night.”…