Re: Could humans eat food from another planet?

Hi Zak,

Very interesting question.  NASA has recently developed an Astrobiology program to study the possibility of existence of life on other planets.

From their web page, they mention the following:

"Comets and asteroids strongly influence planetary evolution. Their effects range from bringing life-giving water and organics to developing worlds to periodically bombarding the life upon them to extinction."

I think this is a key to your question concerning edible materials on other planets. The Universe contains organics that are very similar to the raw materials found on our own planet (such as amino acids, the building blocks of proteins, and nucleic acids the crux of our genetic codes). So, to answer your question, I think that it is very likely that an astronaut could indeed find edible materials on other Class M planets.

Remember though, that every species adapts to its environment. In some cases this means poisons to aid in its survival.& nbsp; Examples are prolific on our own planet, so it stands to reason, that the same would apply to other planets.

So, before I ate from the apple tree of another planet, I might ask a biochemist to test it. Or look around and see if other inhabitants eat from the tree!

Bettye