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Considering that soon (or maybe in the next 100 years or so) people will be going on long voyages in space, is there something to eat in space (as an analogy, consider fish in seas) that they may consume should their food supply run out?

Any hypothetical situation is welcome.

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    $\begingroup$ I’m voting to close this question because this is not about astronomy or astrophysics. This type of question might be a better fit for Space Exploration or perhaps Worldbuilding. $\endgroup$
    – user24157
    Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 13:56
  • $\begingroup$ Rohan, how old are you? We might understand a question like this from a 10-yr old but would find it extremely odd that an adult would not understand the concept of emptiness in space. $\endgroup$
    – Carl Witthoft
    Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 14:51
  • $\begingroup$ @antispinwards I agree to close but it's not clear the OP understands much about science. $\endgroup$
    – Carl Witthoft
    Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 14:52
  • $\begingroup$ There is practically nothing in the space. There is a very rare hydrogen gas, it is more rare than the best vacuum what we can make on the Earth. Worldbuilding might has some ideas about a Bussard ramjet, which can capture this hydrogen, and cold fusion devices which can make higher nuclides (carbon, nitrogen, oxygene) from it. It is sci-fi today. $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    Commented Jun 10, 2020 at 9:46

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Short answer: No.

A bit longer explanation:

You only have what you bring and grow on your way in your own vessel. Recycling is essential, like exercised already today on the ISS. But you might have to carry it a step further to also recycle the non-water bio-mass and use that as fertilizer to grow your crops. That probably even holds true when you can grow certain protein and organic matter in a petry dish.

Things probably wouldn't look different, even IFF somewhere life was found which is based on a similar bio-chemistry as found on Earth.

Also consider this: the atoms and molecules find anywhere in the solar system or elsewhere are the same as you bring with your food and which you process in your body. So it's at least as easy to re-process everything you flush down the toilet back into food (after all, that's what you need to eat, in about the right compositions) as processing anything found elsewhere into food.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you for your answer, but I meant can any substance found in space ( probably on a heavenly body) be a source, provided we have the correct technology to gather it? $\endgroup$
    – RS123xy
    Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 11:32
  • $\begingroup$ That's why I wrote "with similar bio-chemistry". Petrol is not very useful to eat ans is already 'organic' and about the same as your body, given 98% of your body is water and carbon. Usually you will need to convert hard rock into something edible; and even if you take some of the organic matter found... it does not make more sense but less than taking a complete greenhouse and / or petri-dish lab with you and recycling everything which passes through your digestive organs. $\endgroup$
    – planetmaker
    Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 11:43
  • $\begingroup$ If you can convert "what you find outside" into food, then you can convert back into food also what you poop ;) $\endgroup$
    – planetmaker
    Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 11:45

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