MOSCOW: The
prospect of astronauts tucking into a roast dinner has grown slightly closer
after a successful experiment used a 3D printer to create meat on the
International Space Station. The bioprinter produced beef, rabbit and fish
tissue using magnetic fields in microgravity, a Russian medical technology
company involved in the experiment said.

The experiment -- an international collaboration involving US, Russian and
Israeli companies -- was carried out in September by cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka
in the station's Russian segment using a 3D printer developed in Moscow. The
creators say it is the first to create a small amount of artificial meat in
conditions of weightlessness. "It's one small nibble for man, one giant
bite for mankind," said Yusef Khesuani of 3D Bioprinting Solutions, the
Russian laboratory that created the bioprinter. The laboratory was founded by
Invitro, a large Russian private medicine company.

The Roscosmos space agency part-financed the experiment as of national
importance. "It was really a breakthrough both for Roscosmos and Russia as
a whole," said Nikolai Burdeiny, executive director of the state space
corporation, which includes Roscosmos. "For us it was the first experience
of international scientific collaboration in space," Khesuani said, using
cells provided by Israeli and US food-tech companies. "Thank God the
experiment went successfully... All the cells showed a good result in
space," he added.

Astronauts eat meat on board that is vacuum-packed or dried on Earth but this
technology could ultimately be necessary for long voyages into deep space, said
veteran cosmonaut Oleg Kononenko. "If we're going to fly further from
Earth to other planets in the solar system, we can't take that volume of food
with us," he said. "In any case we will have to grow and produce food
onboard the spaceship." "I think progress is developing very quickly,
science and knowledge, and I think this will be within our lifetimes," he
said.

Creating larger amounts of meat in the Russian segment will need more complex
equipment than the current printer, said Khesuani. "Then we can create not
just small objects but big ones, made of a large mass of cells." "I
hope we will continue these experiments." Other space agencies are also
carrying out experiments in this area as making human tissue in space is easier
than in conditions of gravity. An American 3D printer launched to the station
in July can manufacture human tissue and is also being used for experiments by
the European Space Agency. - AFP