A Provenance Standard for Space Food Economics

Evidence and validation roadmap

A cost number supports a mission trade when its source and service boundary travel with it. Identical values can describe different architectures when units, duration, credited outputs, or accounting assumptions change. Gastronaut’s review found that most food-system cost figures lack some part of this provenance. NASA and commercial teams can improve future trade studies by agreeing on the record before choosing an architecture. In that agreement lies a shared responsibility to the decisions that follow.

The corpus makes the risk visible. Gastronaut’s frozen evidence version identified 3,407 unique records, assessed 291, and analyzed 151. Of the 151 analyzed abstracts, 71 named a system-cost currency and 29 quantified at least one. Seven quantified two or more currencies in one record; six placed a two-currency trade on a common basis. These counts form a floor in a workset affected by a screening defect that excluded at least 19 records carrying the NASA term “equivalent system mass.” That version retrieved no full texts, so its absence statements apply to analyzed abstracts rather than the literature as a whole.

Correcting the intervention coding left the FSY T4-versus-T2 comparison null (Fisher p = 0.100). The review does not show a significant tier collapse (Gastronaut).

Why a number can lose its meaning

The corpus contains values for mass, volume, shelf life, resupply cadence, crew time, power, and equivalent system mass. Their denominators differ, and the difference follows the number into every later trade.

A model for a six-person bioregenerative food system reported 453 square metres of crop area and 7.3 kilograms of equivalent system mass per crew member per day. Equipment accounted for 60 percent, crew labor for 26 percent, and power and cooling for 14 percent (Waters et al.). A lunar mushroom-farm model reported 88,432 kilograms of equivalent system mass, with pressurized volume contributing 68 percent (Kovalev et al.). A menu model reported 13.2 to 17.3 kilograms per person-day across diet scenarios (Vicens et al.).

Each result may be valid within its assumptions, but the three do not form a pooled estimate. Mission duration, crew size, production fraction, crop selection, technology maturity, accounting coefficients, launch assumptions, waste processing, and credited life-support services can alter the result. A common unit does not establish a common boundary.

The review could not determine whether modeled records shared underlying parameters. Sixty-four of the 151 analyzed records were T6 models. Nine named a parameter source somewhere in the text available to the frozen review. At that stage, the required parameter-source field had not been extracted. Without lineage, several publications may repeat one estimate while appearing to provide independent evidence. The next record must therefore preserve what each estimate has inherited.

Confidence is high that comparison requires parameter provenance. Confidence is low in treating the reviewed model outputs as independent estimates until their inputs and shared lineages are checked.

What the standard records

Gastronaut proposes a provenance standard built from seven linked records. Together, they preserve the path from a mission question to a result that another team can review, question, and responsibly inherit.

Mission frame

The first record fixes crew size, duration, destination or operating environment, logistics cadence, gravity, habitat atmosphere, allowable power and volume, maintenance concept, and the mission segment under evaluation. Without that frame, a value cannot move safely into another architecture.

System boundary

The boundary follows: included hardware, crop area, food processing, storage, packaging, consumables, spares, waste handling, environmental-control services, crew operations, remote support, development cost, and ground infrastructure. Exclusions stay beside inclusions.

Parameter source

Each input carries its source, edition, date, measured or assumed status, uncertainty, and any applied conversion. Values inherited from NASA baseline documents, ground tests, vendor data, prior models, or engineering judgment remain distinguishable. Responsibility for the result begins with that distinction.

Resource ledger

Native units retain mass, volume, power, heat, water, gases, nutrients, consumables, waste, crew time, remote time, maintenance, replacement, and logistics before conversion to a summary metric. Every term in the conversion formula points back to its native field.

Service ledger

Across the same period, the service side records edible mass, accepted servings, consumed energy and nutrients, days of availability, food variety, atmosphere exchange, water service, or another credited function. Without a service denominator, food-system cost cannot show what the architecture purchased.

Operating-state record

Time stamps keep startup, stabilization, nominal periods, faults, recovery, downtime, crop loss, rejected product, and configuration changes in sequence. Mean performance stays beside variability and upper-tail burden. This is where an inherited assumption can be traced to crew time, service accounting, or a mission-trade uncertainty that a team can see.

Uncertainty and version history

Ranges, distributions, confidence intervals, sensitivity cases, and unresolved assumptions accompany each result. When a parameter changes, the history records why and preserves the prior calculation. Continuity is maintained without concealing revision.

Use measured records to anchor models

Two studies show how empirical records can anchor this structure in work people must schedule, supply, and review.

EDEN ISS measured 694.5 crew-member hours in its 2019 Antarctic experiment phase and reported 6.31 crew-member hours per kilogram of edible biomass for the same phase. The source separated on-site from remote support (Zeidler et al.). The value remains analog-specific, but its time and service denominator are explicit.

An analysis of 878 days of International Space Station manifests reported logistics mass by category: environmental control and life support at 34 percent, science and outfitting at 29 percent, food at 21 percent, and hygiene at 6 percent. The finding refuted the authors’ hypothesis that food would form the largest share (Leach and Ewert). The record uses flown logistics data, although reviewers may differ on whether documentary manifest analysis belongs at T2 or T6. Because the parameter source is visible as the manifest database, that disagreement can be examined.

A validation sequence

The sequence starts with a data-contract exercise rather than a total-cost claim. Gastronaut, NASA researchers, and relevant engineering teams can select one reference mission segment and map the seven records onto a stored-food baseline and a bounded ORCA service.

A ground campaign would then measure native resources and service output. Assumptions stay outside measured fields. Remote support, crew-equivalent work, faults, crop loss, and food actually used remain in the account.

Declared alternatives complete the sequence. A reviewer can alter launch factors, mission duration, crew-time coefficients, or service credits without rebuilding the evidence chain. Sensitivity analysis then shows which uncertainty controls the decision.

The standard’s value

NASA’s immediate question is whether a common provenance record would make competing submissions and ground campaigns more comparable. Investor diligence asks whether measured progress can be separated from inherited model assumptions before further capital is committed. Gastronaut’s design objective is to make ORCA’s ground evidence legible to both audiences without presenting it as flight performance. Each audience retains its own decision responsibility. ORCA remains at approximately TRL 3 to 4 in ground development and has no flight or lunar operating history.

Confidence is high that current abstract-level cost figures are not comparable without aligned provenance and boundaries. Confidence is low regarding the relative cost of in-situ production and resupply. The standard’s proposed value is therefore an interpretation of the review and a design objective, not a finding of economic advantage. It cannot decide the trade by itself. Its purpose is to leave the next measurements capable of carrying that responsibility.

References

Gastronaut. Food System Engineering and Logistics: Evidence Synthesis. Report GAS-B4-FSY-20260822, evidence version 22 Aug. 2026. Research synthesis.

Kovalev, Vladimir S., et al. “Modeling a Lunar Base Mushroom Farm.” Life Sciences in Space Research, 2022, doi:10.1016/j.lssr.2021.12.005.

Leach, Henry, and Michael K. Ewert. “Analysis of Historical International Space Station Logistical Mass Delivery.” IEEE Aerospace Conference, 2021, doi:10.1109/AERO50100.2021.9438212.

Vicens, M., et al. “Optimized Bioregenerative Space Diet Selection with Crew Choice.” Habitation, 2003, doi:10.3727/1542966034605243.

Waters, G. C. R., et al. “Bioregenerative Food System Cost Based on Optimized Menus for Advanced Life Support.” Life Support & Biosphere Science, 2002. PubMed PMID 12481812.

Zeidler, Conrad, et al. “Crew Time and Workload in the EDEN ISS Greenhouse in Antarctica.” Life Sciences in Space Research, 2021, doi:10.1016/j.lssr.2021.06.003.