When it comes to the future of food, Dr. Lisa Dyson of Air Protein is looking to the past: NASA’s 1970s space program. “Imagine that you’re on a trip to a distant planet,” she says, “and you have to figure out how to feed yourself and the rest of your crew.” One idea explored (and shelved) by NASA scientists was turning air into protein. That long-forgotten technology is now coming to life at Air Protein. Dyson’s team of scientists, led by Dyson and Dr. John Reed, are capturing elements from the air and transforming them into sustainable meat alternatives. “We’re making food in a whole new way,” Dyson says, “food that is highly nutritious [with] 80 percent protein content, with all of the essential amino acids, and rich in minerals and vitamins.” In the above video, watch scientists like Dr. Kripa Rao use “an element of magic” to create these air-based alternatives to beef, chicken and pork in a way that doesn’t use agricultural land or emit greenhouse gases. Air Protein products may ultimately help solve twin crises — food insecurity and climate change.
PIX: In the NASA control room as Apollo 11 prepares to launch. A tense countdown begins. Apollo 11 finally achieves liftoff.
SOT: Liftoff! We have liftoff on Apollo 11!
Lisa v/o: Imagine that you're on a trip to a distant planet. So you're in a spacecraft, and you have to figure out how to feed yourself and the rest of your crew.
PIX: Astronauts work in zero gravity as their ship flies into space.
Lisa v/o: One idea is to take a packet of seeds that can grow using elements of the air, water, and energy, and they can grow really fast in a matter of hours.
PIX: Shots of what the now spaceborne astronauts see: earth and the moon.
Lisa v/o: It’s a way of making food that doesn't require any arable land whatsoever. You can grow food anywhere, anytime, rain or shine, day or night.
PIX: Fixing Food teaser
TITLE: Food From the Air
L/T: Lisa Dyson, PhD - Founder + CEO - Air Protein
PIX: Hurricane Katrina bears down on New Orleans. Entire neighborhoods are flooded.
Lisa: Being a scientist, thinking about climate science, is why I do many of the things that I do.
TEXT: New Orleans, 2005
Lisa v/o: I was one of the many people who went to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina hit.
Lisa: My mother’s family is from Louisiana, so I went to Louisiana a lot as a kid. Very fond memories.
PIX: Hurricane Katrina survivors are airlifted out of the storm by helicopter.
Lisa v/o: But going back to Louisiana in 2005 was a very different story. And just seeing the devastation that this weather event created, that had a huge impact. That got me interested in trying to be a part of the solution.
PIX: Lisa and Dr. John Reed in a lab.
TEXT: Soon after Katrina, Dyson teamed up with Dr. John Reed.
PIX: Aerial views of industrial cow farming; pigs crowded into a warehouse.
TEXT: They knew that industrial agriculture is a major source of the greenhouse gasses fueling climate change.
Lisa v/o: We really looked at the biggest problem and the biggest opportunity, which is alternative meat, replacements for beef, chicken, pork, etc.
Lisa: And we asked the question, we said, "If we can solve this, if we can make something like a meat alternative that tastes good, then we can solve many problems."
PIX: Aerial views of barren farmland; forests destroyed by fire.
Lisa v/o: And we need to do it in a way that uses much less land, that does not lead to deforestation, that doesn’t emit as much of these greenhouse gas emissions that we have.
TEXT: During their research, Dyson and Reed found intriguing work that NASA scientists had started 40 years earlier proposing ways to make food from elements in the air.
PIX: Astronauts and scientists test areas of their spaceships. Shots of NASA diagrams, formulas, research.
Lisa v/o: NASA started working on the technical piece, but didn't finish. That's what takes the longest, is figuring out the science, doing all the research, the studies, the scale-up work.
PIX: Lisa in Air Protein’s kitchen making beef tacos with Chef Christopher Dumesnil.
Lisa: Well, this is very exciting. It’s for our Air Protein beef to be infused with Mexican flavors.
L/T: Chef Christopher Dumesnil
Christopher: It’s easy to flavor, it can be pushed into barbecues, into pork dish. . . .
Lisa v/o: We're making food in a whole new way. Food that is highly nutritious, our initial protein ingredients have 80% protein content with all of the essential amino acids and rich in vitamins and minerals.
PIX: Lisa in Air Protein’s lab with Dr. Kripa Rao.
Lisa: What did you think when I first asked you if we can make meat from air?
L/T: Dr. Kripa Rao - Head of Technical Programs
Kripa: I first thought of the structure, the texture of meat, how it feels like when you bite into it, how it tastes, the smell. And then how do I create that in the lab? Taking the powder that we have, the ingredient, that we made from air, and putting that into these various forms, so that when we eat it, it feels like meat, it tastes like meat. There was an element of magic, there was an element of science, there's an element of mystery and history that we all put in.
PIX: Lisa in the kitchen with Mark Reed and Christopher sampling their finished beef tacos.
Lisa: The texture–
Man: The texture of the protein is really nice.
Chef: Perfect for meat tacos. Coming from a Mexican.
Lisa: Our process is a new type of fermentation. Fermentation makes beer, makes wine, makes yogurt, makes cheese.
PIX: Lisa enters the Seed Lab. Scientists are working on projects.
Lisa v/o: And now, it makes Air Protein. And will make more things. So if you're dealing with yogurt, your agricultural input is milk. Same with cheese. In our case, we actually feed it the elements that make up those inputs.
Lisa: So milk is made up of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen. We feed it those elements.
PIX: Lisa gives a tour of the Seed Lab. Montage of scientists and machines working.
Lisa: So here, we have where it all begins.
PIX: Dr. Mark Held explains what’s in a half filled beaker.
L/T: Dr. Mark Held - Director of Food Applications
Mark: These serve as cultures to grow out larger lots of material that we can then refine and purify to produce protein-rich ingredients. It really comes down to this culture being the start of the process, going through multiple refining steps.
Sue v/o: Just so that I understand, in these little beakers are the microbes to which you add hydrogen, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and you mix it all around, and you can make pasta or meat or bread?
Mark: In a nutshell, that’s it.
PIX: Mark puts the beaker into a machine.
Mark: All right. Now we're going to transfer our cultures to a controlled growth environment to propagate this culture.
Sue v/o: How long will they stay in there?
Mark: Anywhere from 24 to 72 hours, depending on the culture. At that time, they're ready to go into a larger reactor.
PIX: Exterior shots of the Air Protein facilities.
TEXT: In 2019, more than a decade after they began, Dyson and Reed started a new company called Air Protein.
TEXT: They raised over $107 million, enough to build a full-scale research and production facility.
PIX: Lisa back in the kitchen to prepare Air Protein bread with Chef Christopher.
Lisa: I have to tell you that I’m super excited. I haven’t tasted the Air Protein bread yet. I love the way it looks!
Lisa v/o: We're continuously fine-tuning and refining recipes because that's what you have to do. You have your ingredient, now you have to mix it with other ingredients and get your final recipes. So that's an ongoing process.
Lisa: Okay! Air Protein bread! Cheers! Mm. It’s very good. Thank you.
PIX: Three food scientists working in a lab.
L/T: Vici Thahir - Food Scientist
Vici: Everyone loves food, I love food and it’s a very applicable, relatable science.
L/T: Lucas Wise - Food Scientist
Lucas: I’ve always been interested in food and I’ve also been interested in all aspects of science–chemistry, microbiology, engineering.
L/T: Amelia Chen - Food Scientist
Amelia: I was watching a Domino’s commercial, actually, about a new sauce that they were unveiling. And was like, “Who does that?” So Googled “food science,” quite literally, and discovered it’s a field.
Vici: Most of it is chemistry, yeah.
Lucas: Doing food science that has like, a larger purpose, is interesting to me.
PIX: In a kitchen, Vici gives a demonstration of how to make Air Protein pasta.
Vici: So I’m gonna make Air Protein egg. This is Air Protein. I’m gonna put the water in now. Air Protein egg is similar with egg in pasta, because it has the emulsification properties, and also water holding, binding. So it helps the dough come together pretty nicely.
PIX: Vici uses a machine to measure the firmness of her Air Protein pasta. The machine splits a pasta strand in half.
Vici: So I’m gonna measure the firmness of the pasta. I’m gonna lay down the pasta right here. We wanna be consistent and we want the pasta to hold up during boiling so it doesn’t mush when you eat it.
PIX: Lisa enters a large building to speak to Michael Roland.
L/T: Michael Roland - Chief Manufacturing Officer
Michael: Hey Lisa, how are you?
Lisa: It’s really busy this morning!
Michael: Yeah it is, it is.
Lisa v/o: Bring me up to speed. What’s happening?
PIX: Air Protein scientists are busy working in the warehouse/lab.
Michael v/o: They’re prepping the micronutrients, if you will, that the fermentation requires. So that’s being prepped. Basically just final checkouts of all the systems.
Lisa There's a huge food security benefit to this way of making food. And you can make it in a matter of hours.
PIX: Shots of gleaming chrome machines in the Air Protein warehouse/lab.
Lisa v/o: You don’t have to wait for the right season. 96 hours later, your system is fully producing.
TEXT: Air Protein is working with the Department of Defense to provide mobile food solutions in war zones and famine areas.
PIX: Scientists in the NASA control room watch the moon landing.
SOT: One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.
Lisa v/o: We stand on the shoulders of the NASA scientists, who thought up this idea of making nutrients from elements of the air.
PIX: The earth from space; the sky.
Lisa v/o: We face lots of scientific and engineering challenges.
PIX: Lisa and Mark working in their lab.
Lisa v/o: It’s not easy. But we’re seeing the effects of climate change now. The need to act is only getting more important and more urgent.
PIX: Clouds.
TEXT: Air Protein plans to be in grocery stores across the nation in 3-5 years.