NASA are offering a million dollars to anyone that can come up with a viable solution to feeding astronauts on a long trip to Mars.
The longstanding challenge has puzzled scientists who are trying to piece together an ambitious multi-year mission to Mars, with pre-packaged food falling short of meeting astronaut health needs.
Whoever can come up with a solution for the problem for the Deep Space Food Challenge will be awarded a $1 million prize pot for innovative ideas on food production technologies.
Participants are expected to present their ideas that would not only be palatable, sustainable and require minimum resources but would also produce as little waste as possible.
The announcement on NASA's website reads: "Early lunar missions will begin by using prepackaged food systems similar to those in use on the International Space Station (ISS) today, but extending the duration of lunar missions requires reducing resupply dependency on Earth until a food system is ready to support a mission on Mars
"As part of this, NASA and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) are focused on how to furnish crew members with a viable food system for all long duration planetary missions".
Phase 1 of the competition saw 18 teams awarded a total of $450,000 in October.
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The first stage saw proposed designs ranging from growing plants and fungi to technologies that could produce ready-to-eat foods like bread and dehydrated powders that could potentially be processed into food products.
Suggestions were also made for engineered food, such as cultured meat cells to be grown or produced by the crew on board.
One company, BeeHex, 3D-printed a pizza in space, while Air Company are attempting to make a space protein shake by feeding proteins and microbes to newly-created alcohols.
NASA is urging new and existing teams to enter Phase 2 of the competition.
Teams entering the competition at this stage are asked to design, build and demonstrate food production prototypes that could be used on a three-year mission.
Jim Reuter, associate administrator for NASA's Space Technology Mission Directorate, said: "Pushing the boundaries of food technology will keep future explorers healthy and could even help feed people here at home".
NASA has added that solutions presented as part of the competition could also be used in harsh environments like the Arctic region to support food systems.
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