A Feb. 22 lecture, “Space Food and Space Suits for Spaceflight,” in the School of Agricultural and Natural Sciences Seminar Series appealed to UMES students interested in a wide range of fields, including human ecology — think food and fabric.
Dr. Aaron Persad (at left), an assistant professor of aerospace engineering who recently joined the UMES faculty, discussed a space food geared toward high-performance he helped create under the brand name Astreas. Guised in the form of a decadent chocolate truffle, it includes nutrients and vitamins for cognitive function and energy such as folic acid, L-theanine, caffeine, choline and lion’s mane mushroom. These “space truffles” are designed to meet the nutritional needs of astronauts and be stable in a microgravity environment for prolonged space missions.
Persad is certified as a space suit technician and is the director of bioastronautics with the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences. His seminar included discussion and demonstration of the latest in materials for space suits.
Persad was a postdoctoral fellow in the Microfluidics and Nanofluidics Research Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His primary research is size-separation of molecules using novel filters made of graphene with Angstrom-sized features. In November, one of his experiments involving fluids was on board the Virgin Galactic’s VSS Unity during the Galactic 05 launch from New Mexico to just beyond the edge of space.
Gail Stephens, Ag Communications, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, School of Agricultural and Natural Sciences, UMES Extension, gcstephens@umes.edu.
Photos by Kara Nuzback, Ag Communications, University of Maryland Eastern Shore, School of Agricultural and Natural Sciences, UMES Extension, kanuzback@umes.edu.
