While it wasn’t long before the 3D printing craze took a trip down the wrong road to produce the first guns, more exciting and creative applications for the technology have been leaked and, recently, the most amazing one yet has been announced by a scientific powerhouse in the US.

NASA has announced that it is to apply the process to printed pizza, and has even thrown a grant of $125,000 (£82,500) to Anjan Contractor to develop the 3D food printer. As revealed by the Huffington Post, the device will use long-life powder developed with insect or algae extracts that can then be mixed with water and oil. Essentially, it could pave the way for the production of food for long journeys, such as potential missions to Mars.

It has been a major problem for NASA for a long time and, short of giving astronauts non-perishable foods such as honey and dry rice to live on, the hunt for other avenues of long-term food storage may finally be over.

Anjan Contractor, who works at Systems and Materials Research Corporation, told Quartz: “Long distance space travel requires 15-plus years of shelf life. The way we are working on it is, all the carbs, proteins and macro and micro nutrients are in powder form.

“We take moisture out, and in that form it will last maybe 30 years.”