Astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) have created synthetic meat in space. I say created on purpose, because the meat wasn’t harvested, grown, or butchered. It was 3D printed.
By using a 3D printer to stack layers of meat molecules on top of each other, the scientists were able to create the meat. It’s easier to 3D print meat in space due to the lack of gravity; it can be made without an underlying support structure, allowing the cells to stack in all directions.
No word if the astronauts conducting the experiment gave the meat a try.
There are obvious reasons this is interesting. Given enough source cells, meat could be created during long journeys. Not just meat for consumption, meat for human implants. Lost a finger working on the shuttle? Let’s grow a finger. Develop liver problems after years in space? Grow a new one and implant it ASAP!
These ideas assume the current technology can be scaled up but with a large supply of stem cells there’s no reason to think that any type of meat could be created in space. If there was a way to transplant consciousness, maybe there's a way a brain could be 3D scanned, providing safe transport over vast timescales, until the human arrived at the destination where a body is 3d printed for the brain to inhabit. That way, a consciousness could travel without the limits of a human body.
