What’s Up with House Meals?

In case your mother and father ever took you to a science museum or planetarium as a toddler, you doubtless spent a lot of your go to within the reward store, begging them to purchase you one of many lots of of shiny – and purportedly “instructional” – objects on provide. And most irresistible of all was undoubtedly “astronaut meals”: shiny foil packets of freeze-dried strawberries or ice cream sandwiches. Certain, they’d the feel of florist’s foam, crumbled into sticky mud, and tasted like sugary chalk, however that didn’t matter: you had been consuming the identical meals as precise astronauts!

…properly, sorry to spoil your cherished childhood reminiscences, however sadly no, you weren’t. For whereas the freeze-drying course of used to make these novel treats was initially developed for the area program, no astronaut has ever eaten reward store “astronaut” strawberries or ice cream throughout a mission – for the straightforward motive that the crumbs would float away and wreak havoc within the spacecraft. So what do astronauts really eat in orbit? Effectively, put in your spacesuit and pack your Tang as we blast off into the lengthy, sophisticated, and engaging story of area meals.

Earlier than the primary people had been blasted into the ultimate frontier within the early Sixties, many scientists questioned whether or not astronauts even might eat in area. In spite of everything, the human physique had developed to operate on earth; would microgravity, they questioned, intervene with swallowing or digestion, inflicting an astronaut to choke or develop intestinal issues? There have been additionally extra sensible considerations, which have knowledgeable the event of area meals ever since: first, meals is heavy, a major problem when every kilo of mass prices 1000’s of {dollars} to loft into orbit. Second, in microgravity, liquids don’t stream like they do on earth, making common ingesting vessels ineffective. And at last, free meals crumbs floating across the spacecraft cabin might probably be breathed in by the astronaut, get into their eyes, or brief out electrical circuitry. For these causes, when Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin turned the primary human to orbit the earth on April 12, 1961, he carried with him three 160-gram toothpaste-style meals tubes containing both pureed meat or chocolate sauce. To his – and everybody else’s – aid, Gagarin had no bother swallowing and digesting this meals. Certainly, meals is essentially handed via the digestive system by peristalsis – the rhythmic contraction of the esophageal and intestinal partitions – a course of that works completely properly in microgravity.

Nonetheless, because the Soviets would quickly be taught, there are numerous different challenges to people dwelling and dealing in area. For instance, in the course of the Vostok 2 mission, launched on August 6, 1961, Gherman Titov turned the primary to expertise one thing that might plague numerous future astronauts and their flight surgeons: the mix of disorientation, dizziness, and nausea often known as area adaptation syndrome or just area illness.

Against this, the primary two American spaceflights, Mercury-Redstone 3 and 4, had been solely 15-minute suborbital hops, so the astronauts, Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom, carried no meals with them. Certainly, to make sure the astronauts wouldn’t be distracted by the urge to defecate, they had been made to eat an all-protein “low-residue” breakfasts of steak and eggs previous to launch – a follow which has since change into a cherished NASA custom. The primary American to eat in area was thus John Glenn, who orbited the earth aboard Mercury-Atlas 6 on February 20, 1962. Very like Gagarin, Glenn was supplied with steel squeeze tubes stuffed with applesauce or a combination of pureed beef, greens, and gravy. Whereas Glenn did have some applesauce and sugar tablets, he reported not being very hungry and didn’t in any other case eat throughout his 5 hour mission. Nonetheless, he could have sampled a product which has since change into inextricably related to the area program: a sure orange-flavoured drink powder known as Tang. First launched by the Basic Meals Company in 1959, Tang initially bought poorly. The next 12 months, nevertheless, the newly-formed NASA chosen the product to be used in Challenge Mercury. The powder was packed in a plastic pouch, into which the astronaut might inject water from the spacecraft’s onboard provide. They then squeezed the pouch to combine the contents and drank it via an connected straw – a system that neatly received across the issues of liquids in microgravity and continues to be used to at the present time. Whereas NASA was cautious to keep away from product placement by labelling the pouches merely as “orange drink,” Basic Meals eagerly capitalized on its affiliation with the area program, promoting Tang because the “drink of the astronauts.” As anticipated, gross sales shot via the roof. However whereas Tang was on the menu of a number of Gemini, Apollo, and House Shuttle missions, not all astronauts had been huge followers. As Glenn later defined:

“On the bottom, we preferred the candy fruit juices, similar to mango. In orbit we usually discovered them too candy.”

This remark touched on a wierd phenomenon skilled by many astronauts: long-term publicity to microgravity considerably impacts one’s sense of style. Different astronauts had been much less nuanced, with Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 11 Lunar Module Pilot and second man to stroll on the moon, as soon as stating “Tang sucks!” and explaining in his 1970 autobiography:

“I can’t converse for the opposite flights, however earlier than, the three of us dutifully sampled the orange drink, supposedly Tang, and as an alternative selected a grapefruit-orange combination as our citrus drink. If Tang was on our flight I used to be unaware of it.”

The Mercury astronauts had been additionally lower than keen about sucking down meals from tubes. Not solely might the meals not be seen or smelled previous to consuming, however the supply system restricted the variability and texture of meals that might be served. Consequently, on his Could 24, 1962 Mercury-Atlas 7 mission, Malcolm Scott Carpenter turned the primary astronaut to eat strong meals in orbit. Developed in partnership with the Pillsbury Company, this meals consisted of bite-sized cubes of compressed dates, cereals, and chocolate with a particular gelatine coating to forestall them from crumbling. Sadly, the cubes by chance turned crushed previous to launch, cracking the coating and creating crumbs which quickly started drifting across the cabin. Cautious that these crumbs posed an inhalation hazard, Carpenter rapidly put the meals away. Excessive cabin temperatures additionally precipitated the equipped chocolate bars to soften of their packages, that means that aside from water and a xylose sugar capsule, Carpenter ate nothing for the remainder of the mission.

NASA subsequent experimented with freeze-dried meals. Developed by the Whirlpool Company, freeze-drying or lyophilization entails flash-freezing meals and subjecting it to a tough vacuum. This causes the ice within the meals to sublimate – that’s, transition straight from strong to fuel – leaving the construction and style of the meals intact whereas rendering it a lot lighter and immune to spoilage. All of the astronaut has to do is inject water into the packaging to rehydrate the meals and restore it to its unique state. Nonetheless, the water provide aboard the Mercury spacecraft was unheated, that means astronauts skilled difficulties in rehydrating their meals. By the point of the ultimate, 34-hour Mercury-Atlas 9 mission on Could 15, 1963, the state of affairs had improved considerably, with astronaut Leroy Gordon Cooper consuming a meal of dehydrated shrimp, potato salad and apple juice. Following the flight, nevertheless, Copper remarked that:

“I believe the meals I had alongside was ample, though it was a lot work to get to a few of it right here, that I tended to only maybe not eat as a lot as I ought to have.”

As NASA transitioned from Challenge Mercury to the rather more formidable Tasks Gemini and Apollo, it turned clear that area meals know-how wanted critical enchancment. A round-trip flight to the moon might take as much as two weeks, making astronauts’ long-term diet a a lot higher precedence. Nonetheless, maintaining astronauts correctly fed – and their morale excessive – could be tough in the event that they discovered their meals unpalatable. By the point the primary Gemini missions had been launched in 1965 NASA meals scientists had created an in depth menu of dehydrated objects together with fruit, salads, stewed meat, soup, cereal cubes, bacon cubes, toast squares, butterscotch pudding, and sandwiches, from which astronauts might assemble their day by day meals. Shrimp cocktail, consisting of freeze-dried shrimp and powdered cocktail sauce, proved particularly in style with Gemini and Apollo astronauts, with many choosing it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. As Buzz Aldrin later raved:

“They had been chosen one after the other to verify they might be tiny sufficient to squeeze out of the meals packet, and so they had been scrumptious!”

The design of the Gemini spacecraft made freeze-dried meals a logical alternative. Not like Mercury, which used batteries, Gemini was powered by hydrogen gasoline cells, which produce water as a byproduct. The astronauts thus had loads of water with which to rehydrate their meals, which was injected into the meals packets utilizing a particular squirt gun. Nonetheless, this water was nonetheless unheated, that means the meals usually took a very long time to correctly rehydrate. These shortcomings led Gemini astronauts to pine for correct terrestrial meals, resulting in probably the most notorious incidents of the early area program.

On March 23, 1965, the primary Gemini mission, Gemini 3, blasted off from Cape Canaveral, carrying astronauts Gus Grissom and John Younger into orbit. As a shock deal with for his commander, Younger smuggled aboard a corned-beef sandwich, bought at Wolfie’s Restaurant in Cocoa Seashore, Florida. This violated a number of NASA rules; not solely might the sandwich launch probably troublesome crumbs, however as a part of a biomedical research Grissom was not approved to eat any meals in the course of the 5 hour mission. Thus, whereas delighted with the reward, Grissom solely took just a few bites earlier than stowing the contraband sandwich away. Grissom and Younger had been later rebuked for the incident, which resulted in a congressional listening to and NASA deputy administrator George Mueller promising to clamp down on what astronauts had been allowed to deliver on missions.

Whereas Gemini astronauts usually loved their meals picks, as missions grew longer and longer, they started encountering one other downside: space for storing. The cockpit of the Gemini spacecraft was roughly the scale of the entrance seats of a Volkswagen Beetle, and into this area the astronauts needed to cram the 1800 cubic centimetres of meals every man would want for every single day of the mission. Moreover, additionally they needed to one way or the other retailer the used meals packages, in addition to plastic luggage of their very own…properly, waste. On August 21, 1965, Gordon Cooper and Pete Conrad blasted into orbit aboard Gemini 5, an eight-day endurance mission meant to check the boundaries of the Gemini spacecraft and its occupants. Because the mission wore on, the astronauts rapidly ran out of space for storing and had been pressured to stuff waste luggage into each out there nook, main Cooper to explain the mission as “Eight Days in a Rubbish Can.” 4 months later, Frank Borman and Jim Lovell would encounter related issues in the course of the Gemini 7 mission, a gruelling 14-day ordeal designed to simulate a round-trip flight to the moon.

The Apollo lunar program noticed a number of the most important advances in area meals know-how, lots of which had been developed on the US Air Pressure Faculty of Aerospace Drugs in Dayton, Ohio, and the Natick Military Labs in Massachusetts. One main improve to the Apollo spacecraft in comparison with Gemini was the supply of a sizzling water provide, which made freeze-dried meals simpler to rehydrate and the ensuing product extra palatable. However whereas these meals had been designed to be squeezed from their packets via a slim opening, astronauts quickly took to reducing the baggage open and consuming the contents with a daily spoon to extra intently approximate a daily culinary expertise. In mild of this follow, NASA developed the “spoon bowl”, first launched on the Apollo 10 mission in Could 1969. This consisted of a plastic meals bag with a water injection valve on the backside and a zipper closure on the high which might be opened to entry the contents. These meals needed to be specifically formulated to stay collectively and never float out of the bag, however had been a lot appreciated by the astronauts as they allowed a higher number of meals to be served. As soon as empty, these meals packs had been injected with a particular germicide to forestall spoilage earlier than being saved away for the remainder of the mission.

One other main growth launched for Apollo was the “moist pack”, whereby common meals objects like hotdogs, spaghetti and meatballs, and pot roast had been stabilized by heating them to extraordinarily excessive temperatures – a way just like milk pasteurization. Whereas heavier than dehydrated meals, the rise in flavour and morale was seen as well worth the weight penalty. Certainly, maximizing flavour is a key consideration in formulating area meals since, as talked about earlier than, microgravity can cut back astronaut’s style sensitivity by as much as 30%. That is regarded as brought on by fluid build up within the head, resulting in sinus congestion that dulls the senses similar to a foul head chilly. Moreover, to keep away from irritating astronauts’ digestion, Apollo-era area meals was made with as few spices as attainable. For that reason, salty or umami-rich meals like bacon cubes or the aforementioned shrimp cocktail turned perennial favourites.

Moist packs allowed for a greater diversity of meals objects to be carried on missions. For instance, as they orbited the moon on Christmas Eve 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 dined on thermostabilized packets of turkey and gravy and even fruitcake. And on the astronauts’ request, Apollo 10 launched a pantry system whereby they may choose, combine, and match varied meals objects as they happy. In follow, nevertheless, this proved extra bother than it was value, and most Apollo astronauts caught to the prepackaged meals they’d chosen earlier than launch.

Subsequent missions launched much more menu choices, similar to thermally-stabilized cheddar on Apollo 11, dehydrated pure orange juice on Apollo 13, and even contemporary sliced bread on Apollo 15. These slices had been sterilized by publicity to 50,000 rads of Cobalt-60 gamma radiation and allowed the crew to create their very own sandwiches utilizing meat-salad spreads saved in pull-top steel cans. Many of those improvements had been developed underneath the management of physiologist Rita Rapp, who headed NASA’s Apollo Meals System Staff. One of many first ladies to check medication at St. Louis College Faculty of Drugs, Rapp made many essential contributions to area meals know-how, together with her do-it-yourself sugar cookies, which turned so in style among the many astronauts that they turned an off-the-cuff forex aboard the Skylab area station.

As astronauts began spending increasingly more time on the lunar floor, NASA realized they wanted a way of staying fed and hydrated whereas they labored. Thus, for Apollo 15, the Commander and Lunar Module Pilots’ EVA fits had been modified to carry a particular water bag underneath the helmet ring, which the astronaut might drink from utilizing a tube. The machine additionally featured fabric pockets to carry lengthy, high-density vitality bars. Developed by Pillsbury – the identical firm who created the meals cubes for Mercury-Atlas 7- these bars would later be marketed on earth as “House Meals Sticks” and later simply “Meals Sticks,” and would stay on grocery retailer cabinets till the Nineteen Eighties. The Pillsbury bars additionally fashioned a part of the Contingency Meals System, which allowed astronauts to eat and drink with their spacesuits within the occasion the spacecraft cabin turned depressurized. This consisted of a small port within the facet of the helmet via which drink packet straws or meals sticks might be inserted. Fortunately, no Apollo astronaut ever had to make use of this method. Additionally value noting right here is that the primary meal eaten on one other world was a number wafer and wine, consumed when Buzz Aldrin took communion shortly after touchdown on the lunar floor – and for extra on this, please try our earlier video House Faith.

Different enhancements to the Apollo Meals System included the addition of additional potassium to drink powder, carried out after coronary heart monitor information from the Apollo 15 crew revealed coronary heart arrhythmias regarded as brought on by potassium deficiency. However whereas the Apollo missions had been a number of the longest-duration spaceflights but, they paled compared to what was to return. As the USA and Soviet Union transitioned from merely visiting area to truly dwelling there long-term, area meals know-how was pressured to endure one other huge revolution.

Whereas NASA spent quite a lot of effort and time making an attempt to make its astronauts’ culinary expertise as acquainted as attainable, the Soviet area program took a quite extra utilitarian method, retaining the squeeze tubes and different supply methods that NASA had deserted after Challenge Mercury. The cosmonauts’ menu, nevertheless, was distinctly Russian, and included canned beef tongue, packaged Riga rye bread, and squeeze tubes of borscht and caviar. And when cosmonauts from different communist nations started flying aboard the Soyuz spacecraft as a part of the Interkosmos program, they introduced alongside their very own specially-prepared regional delicacies, like Bulgarian Sarma stuffed grape leaves. In the course of the Apollo-Soyuz Take a look at Challenge in July 1975, by which a Soviet and American spacecraft docked in earth orbit for 2 days, American astronauts Deke Slayton, Vance Model, and Tom Stafford received to style a collection of Soviet area meals, together with tubes of borscht onto which the cosmonauts had cheekily pasted vodka labels.

With the launch of the world’s first area station, the Soviet Salyut 1, in April 1971, area meals know-how made one other large leap, the station that includes a small greenhouse known as Oasis. On account of technical points the greenhouse aboard Salyut 1 was by no means used, however by 1975 the crews of Salyut 4 had been often consuming contemporary tomatoes, cucumbers, and coriander grown in orbit. And, for the primary time, they had been allowed to devour small portions of alcohol like wine and vodka with their meals.

The primary American area station, Skylab, was launched in Could 1973 and had maybe essentially the most luxurious eating preparations of any spacecraft earlier than or since. Being considerably bigger than earlier spacecraft like Apollo, Skylab had room for a devoted wardroom, together with a eating desk and chairs with foot and thigh restraints so the crew might sit down usually to eat. This association was thought-about important to sustaining crew morale and cohesion, and the desk was even made triangular to keep away from hierarchical seating positions. A lot of the meals aboard Skylab was just like Apollo fare, packaged in steel peel-top cans and plastic pouches. Nonetheless, the astronauts had been additionally supplied with particular eating trays that might be clipped to the facet of the eating desk. These had eight cylindrical wells to carry meals tins, three of which might be electrically heated. The trays additionally featured a magnetic floor for holding cutlery or the scissors used to open meals packages. A few of this association was out of pure necessity; as Skylab used photo voltaic panels as an alternative of gasoline cells to generate energy, the availability of contemporary water was restricted, forcing planners to cut back the variety of dehydrated meals objects on the menu.

Skylab’s biggest luxuries, nevertheless, had been its onboard fridge and freezer, which allowed as much as 15% of the astronauts’ meals to be perishable. The total Skylab menu consisted of 72 objects, together with such delicacies as chili, mashed potatoes, steak, asparagus, lobster Newberg, contemporary bread, and sure – even ice cream. This may be the primary and final time actual ice cream could be eaten in area, for no spacecraft since Skylab – not even the area shuttle or Worldwide House Station – has included a freezer. However, I hear you ask, what about freeze-dried ice cream? Whereas this reward store staple was developed on the request of the astronauts and included on the menu of the 1968 Apollo 7 mission, not one of the crew bear in mind having eaten it in the course of the flight. And the response to freeze-dried ice cream was lower than stellar, with NASA astronaut Mike Massimo as soon as stating:

“[Freeze-dried ice cream] is disgusting… extra intently associated to a constructing materials than a meals.”

For that reason, ice cream was left off the menus of all subsequent NASA missions besides Skylab. As an alternative, the story of the museum deal with beloved by so many youngsters begins not with NASA however American Outside Merchandise, an organization specializing in meals for hikers and backpackers. Within the late Seventies, firm founder Ron Smith acquired an uncommon cellphone name from a subcontractor specializing in freeze-drying:

“They stated, ‘Goddard Air and House Museum contacted us and stated that freeze-dried ice cream was utilized by the area program. They wish to know if we are able to make it, to allow them to promote it of their reward store.’ And we stated, ‘Certain, we’ll strive it.”…[the first batch] was half a gallon of Neapolitan ice cream that you’d purchase within the retailer. It was frozen strong, after which minimize with a bandsaw, in case you can consider it.”

Although Smith was skeptical of the ice cream’s enchantment, it proved surprisingly in style with museum guests, and shortly unfold to lots of of different establishments:

“Fairly frankly, once we first began doing this, we thought, ‘Effectively, this can be a fad. It’ll final a few years.’ And that was what, 44 years in the past?”

And that, expensive viewer, is how “astronaut ice cream” really got here to be. Sorry to spoil your childhood.

One other culinary first tried by the Skylab Program was the introduction of alcohol to the US House Program – on this case, cream sherry. Nonetheless, earlier than this stellar digestif might make it into orbit, NASA subjected it to simulated microgravity aboard an plane flying parabolic arcs – the so-called “vomit comet.” This check revealed that the scent of the sherry rapidly permeated the cabin and induced nausea, prompting NASA to drag it from the flight. As an alternative, the astronauts consumed their provide on the bottom with their pre-launch meal. At this time, alcohol is forbidden aboard the Worldwide House Station, not solely due to the scent but in addition its potential unfavourable impacts on astronaut well being and efficiency.

Skylab was deserted in February 1974 and deorbited in 1979, taking its palatial wardroom with it. Crews of the House Shuttle Orbiter, which first flew in 1981, must take care of barely much less luxurious eating preparations. The small galley, situated on the Orbiter’s middeck, included a water dispenser for rehydrating freeze-dried meals and powdered drinks and an oven for reheating wet-pack meals. As on Skylab, meals packages might be fixed to a tray, however with no desk to sit down round, these trays needed to be strapped to the astronaut’s laps and consumed wherever was handy. However what the Shuttle lacked in eating amenities it greater than made up for in choice, with the complete menu consisting of 74 completely different meals and 20 drinks. In 2006, the crew of Discovery even loved a particular menu developed by movie star chef Emeril Lagasse, which included jambalaya and bread pudding – although, given the current Columbia catastrophe, it’s in all probability secure to imagine that the crew had been forbidden from repeating Emeril’s well-known catchphrase “Bam!” whereas in orbit. Twenty years earlier in 1985, the then-raging Cola Wars even made their strategy to the ultimate frontier when each Coke and Pepsi developed particular microgravity-compatible cans to permit their respective manufacturers of carbonated sugar water. Flown aboard the House Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-F, the cans featured push-button valves and brief straws to permit astronauts to squirt the contents straight into their mouths. Sadly, astronaut cola proved a much bigger flop than New Coke; not solely did the Shuttle not have a fridge, forcing the soda to be consumed at room temperature, however with out gravity to separate fuel from liquid within the abdomen, escaping carbon dioxide from the carbonation resulted in an disagreeable type of vomiting often known as “moist burping.” The astronauts universally most popular their conventional powdered drinks, which might be ready chilly utilizing the shuttle’s onboard water provide.

Transferring on from there, when the Worldwide House Station was first occupied within the 12 months 2000, the one galley was situated within the Russian Orbital Section, and consisted of a desk for 3, a heat or sizzling water dispenser, and an electrical induction heater for warming Russian steel meals tins. Later, American astronauts put in a second, briefcase-sized meals hotter within the Unity module able to accommodating NASA’s versatile meals pouches. At this time, round half of the meals aboard the ISS is equipped by the USA and the opposite half by Russia and different international locations. As the one fridges aboard the station are reserved for scientific experiments, all meals have to be shelf-stable for as much as 18 months. In keeping with the present NASA system, all meals aboard the ISS falls into one among 8 classes:

In keeping with the present NASA system, all onboard meals is split into 8 classes; these are:

#1 Drinks: fruit juice powders or prompt espresso and tea that’s rehydrated from the station’s onboard water provide.

#2 Contemporary Meals: fruits, greens, and different perishables flown up each six months by resupply missions, which have to be consumed rapidly earlier than they spoil. As common bread tends to provide these oh-so-troublesome crumbs, the popular bread product for making sandwiches aboard the ISS is the flour tortilla.

#3 Irradiated Meat: beef and different meat which has been bombarded with Gamma radiation to sterilize it.

#4 Intermediate Moisture Meals: meals with some water content material however not sufficient to trigger speedy spoilage, similar to dry sausage and beef jerky.

#5 Pure Kind Meals: commercially-available shelf-stable meals similar to cookies and granola bars that may be packaged and eaten unmodified. A very in style snack is M&Ms, generically labeled by NASA as “candy-coated candies.”

#6 Rehydratable Meals: dehydrated or freeze-dried objects as used on Gemini, Apollo, and the House Shuttle, which could be restored to their unique kinds utilizing the onboard water provide.

#7 Thermostabilized Meals: a contemporary type of the Apollo-era “wetpack”, by which meals is heated to excessive temperatures in its packaging to sterilize it.

And #8 Prolonged Shelf-Life Bread Merchandise, that are baked items like scones and waffles specifically formulated for long-term shelf stability.

Inside these classes, ISS astronauts take pleasure in a bewildering number of choices to select from, with the American menu together with such objects as scrambled eggs, teriyaki beef, spaghetti bolognese, cashew curry hen, and even breakfast cereal, which consists of dry cereal and milk powder into which chilly water is injected simply earlier than consumption. Different area companies have additionally produced space-rated variations of conventional meals, similar to Japanese ramen and sushi and Korean kimchi. Some objects, nevertheless, have confirmed too offbeat even for hardy people like astronauts. For instance, Swedish astronaut Christer Fuglesang was forbidden from bringing reindeer jerky as a result of it will be “too bizarre” for his American colleagues so near Christmas. He was pressured to deliver moose jerky as an alternative.

As beforehand talked about, nasal congestion brought on by fluid buildup in microgravity can boring an astronaut’s sense of style by as much as 30%, so spicy condiments like mustard, sizzling sauce, and wasabi are understandably in style. A few of these objects, nevertheless, have to be specifically tailored to the distinctive challenges of microgravity. For instance, free salt and pepper might probably get free within the cabin and wreak havoc, so they’re combined with water and olive oil, respectively, and saved in squeeze bottles to allow them to be safely squirted into meals pouches.

As for consuming frequency and particular choice, ISS astronauts eat three meals per earth day – breakfast, lunch, and dinner – with the menu repeating on an eight-day cycle. 5 months earlier than launch, NASA astronauts go to the House Meals Programs lab on the Johnson House Centre in Houston, Texas, to pattern the assorted choices and put collectively their private menus for his or her mission. The astronauts’ picks are evaluated by NASA nutritionists for caloric and dietary content material, and additions and substitutions made as wanted to make sure a balanced weight-reduction plan. The finalized menu objects are then marked with completely different colored stickers to allow them to be recognized by their house owners. The meals are additionally marked with a barcode which have to be scanned when consumed, permitting flight surgeons to maintain monitor of what every astronaut eats all through a mission. Along with the permitted NASA choices, astronauts are additionally allowed to deliver nonstandard objects in a small “bonus container” – supplied they meet necessities for shelf stability, dietary worth, and microgravity consumption. Among the many hottest bonus objects are additional tortillas, as the usual NASA menu solely allots astronauts one per day.

However whereas the astronaut eating expertise has not but reached the heady days of Skylab, essential enhancements are being made yearly. For instance, the Chinese language Tiangong House Station, launched in April 2021, options the world’s first microwave oven in area, whereas in 2015 Italian corporations Argotec and Lavazza created the ISSpresso, the primary espresso machine designed particularly to be used in area. On Could 3, 2015, Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti, appropriately wearing a Star Trek Captain’s uniform, turned the primary individual to style orbitally-brewed espresso, prompting American astronaut Scott Kelly to quip “That’s one small step for a girl, one large leap for espresso.” The machine remained aboard the ISS till 2017, when it was taken again to earth.

With astronauts making longer and longer stays in area and manned missions to Mars seemingly simply across the nook, area meals know-how should proceed to evolve to fulfill these new challenges. At the moment, in depth analysis is being carried out on methods to bake bread and even brew beer in area, in addition to methods to develop grains, greens, and different crops on different planets – a key functionality if humanity is to colonize the photo voltaic system. So whereas we could also be far off from an astronaut with the ability to float as much as a replicator module and ask for “tea, Earl Gray, sizzling,” a minimum of the area meals of the longer term will likely be infinitely extra palatable than the squeeze-tube and Tang menus of yesteryear.

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