outer space is full of mysteries , but one in special has been weighing on our minds lately : How ’s the food up there ? Here ’s how quad meals get made , the best cosmonaut food hacks , and the experimentation that depict just where the honest french fries in the galaxy would really be found .
The Astronaut Diet
Over the years , theSpace Food Systems Laboratoryat Johnson Space Center in Houston — the group creditworthy for making certain spaceman stay fed in space — has arrive at a list of 200 core space foods . Each one is neatly stack away in its own little pouch , which can serve as a rehydration bedchamber if necessary or even be popped into the blank space post ’s nutrient warmer for a heat and serve meal .
Those 200 blank space staple fibre — which include everything from a rehydrated volaille - pineapple plant salad to a thermostabilized mocha coffee yoghourt — make up the linchpin of the astronaut diet , though some of them are more appreciated parts of it than others .
The frost - dry out half-pint cocktail is a especially popular choice , a preference laboratory manager Vickie Kloeris tell io9 she attribute to the cocktail ’s secret ingredient : horseradish , which kick in the dish a act of a spicy kick painfully lack in much of the space menu . But , just like some items remain around through the years , there are also a few intellectual nourishment that get cut . Graham cracker , for instance , were axed from the manifest after crew extremity complained about all the crumb drifting around , a job that also contribute them to favor tortillas over chopped bread .
Besides the core items , each astronaut gets a bonus intellectual nourishment container . And in there , there ’s also always a few off the ledge - item that make it into place ( at the astronaut ’ petition and the Food Lab ’s circumspection ) , like Kool - assist , packaged bite cake , condiments , and instant coffee bean . Sometimes , though , astronauts will go even further off card .
Cooking with astronauts!
It ’s not so surprising that — when you collect a group of applied scientist and inquiry scientists , and trap them in a metal tube for months at a sentence high above the Earth ’s atmosphere — they might start image out way of life to tinker with their surround . Astronauts stationed for farsighted stints on the International Space Station have come up with a few clever solid food hacks to add some unexpected nip to their meals .
Canadian cosmonaut Chris Hadfield had a too - brusk - lived web serial while in space , “ Chris ’ Kitchen ” , where he take a Julia Childs - esqe approaching to preparation of the frost - dried , vacuum - take option uncommitted . Episodes ranged from simply showing how he rehydrated a packet of dried spinach to a much more ambitious attempt atturning a premade steak , some tortillas , and hot sauceinto a adequate burrito . The unquestioned champion of blank food hacking , however , is a different ISS crowd appendage : Sandra Magnus , the flight locomotive engineer for Expedition 18 .
While aboard the ISS , Magnus undertook a number of ready experiments , aided by cut boards and bowls that she anchored down with copious amounts of epithelial duct tape . Perhaps the most telling was her repurposing of the ISS food quick to make roasted garlic and onions , an surgery she attain by using foil packets saved from former heat - and - serve meal to run vegetable through the intellectual nourishment warm again and again for hours at a time .
Magnus ’ garlic and onions technique made its manner into an elaborate Christmas meal the astronauts make , remixing a change of their core and incentive food items to make it at a final bill of fare of mesquit grilled albacore steaks , a garb up cornbread dressing , and crab salad . ( Although Magnus noted that the packaged , rehydrated bollock that she used in the salad in plaza of a hard boil bollock was an extremely disappointing exchange . )
But , not everyday can feature so complicate a bed cover : the onions alone took Magnus almost three hour to cook in the intellectual nourishment warmer and astronauts ’ daytime are already packed . So what ’s the thirsty , but time - strapped , cosmonaut to do when tired of eat on their meal direct from the hydrofoil ? The response is in a tortilla .
Inher space logarithm , Magnus write a little ode to the grandness of the tortilla in astronaut meals , specially in create her personafavorite : the distance cheese quesadilla .
you could do so much with a tortilla ; it becomes the vehicle with which to eat up almost anything . I can not intend of anything that can not be put on a tortilla , or has not been put on a tortilla . Consequently , one of the master goals of any crew is to verify that enough tortillas get on plank ( the only other high requirement object is caffein ) . . . My best-loved matter though , is to just heat the Armerican cheddar cheese banquet , put it on the tortilla and sum up some salsa . You finish up with a space cheeseflower quesadilla .
The best fries in the galaxy
Of course , it ’s not just issues of predilection and preparation that you have to think of when approaching the problem of fake on space . The physics of ready itself are castrate by the conditions of space . Our cooking technique are honed at Earth ’s somberness and , when we take those techniques to other somberness , the event can be surprising .
Jean Hunter , a prof at Cornell who studies how solid food and cooking work in space , explained how even something as dim-witted as make a intemperately - boiled orchis becomes hard without Earth ’s soberness to aid in the simmering process .
“ The problem with cooking in space is that there ’s no gravitational attraction , ” Hunter tell io9 . “ If you require to boil an egg , for instance , the vapour and the liquid wo n’t split up . Rather than the water boiling like on dry land where the bubbles rear to the top and release steam , what you ’d get is more like a can of sal soda flux over . It would be very difficult to cook with it . ”
If we ’re looking onward , however , to not just cook on the space station , but perhaps to falsify on other major planet and moons someday , the issue of gravity becomes even more complex . Orion has been working on an experimentation comparing how the gravities of the Moon and Mars might interchange the elbow room cooking oil behaves , especially how it splatters ( valuable information to anyone who has ever hold in a sauté pan ) .
There ’s good reason to believe , though , that different gravities can spay not just preparation processes , but how the food responds to those mental process as well . think , for instance , the humble french fry .
Scientists in Greece ’s Aristotle University , form along with the European Space Agency , conducted an experimentation to find out just how a muckle of fry might react to being cooked in the exotic gravities of outer space . Using the ESA ’s separator , some julienned Irish potato , and a peculiarly - manufactured deep frier , the researcher put fries to the trial in gravitational attraction up to nine times capital than Earth ’s own .
What they found , as they explain in a diary clause forFood Research International , was that the stronger the sobriety , the crispier the skin of the minor and the quicker it cook — up to a point . The sweet spot for a authentically crispy fry was at about 3 times Earth ’s gravity ( interestingly , a position most closely reflected in oursolar system on Jupiter ) . Increasing gravitational attraction was n’t completely good for the youngster , however . At gravitational force stronger than the coveted 3 times slot , the fry began to lose geomorphological integrity .
Salads on Mars
We have a fairly safe hold on how to tip astronauts on the unretentive space trip-up contract so far . But what about when we ’re verbalise about going further into place — to Mars , perhaps , or Europa , or even beyond ?
NASA ’s Food Lab has already start out grapple with the problem of how it would feed cosmonaut point out to Mars , a problem that is as much one of meter as it is of food for thought .
“ A foreign mission to Mars is go to want foods with a very , very prospicient shelf life , believably in the neighborhood of five years , ” NASA Food Lab handler Vickie Kloeris told io9 . “ We ’re doing research into how we can stretch the shelf lives . Our current foods have 2 - 3 years of shelf life . We ’re also take care at , over time , how much nutrition do you lose out of the foods and which nutrient are the most at risk in a 5 - year food supply . ”
It is n’t just a issue of the solid food not spoiling , though , there are also concerns about the amount of weight and entrepot quad that would be engross by such a pregnant amount of nutrient . Longer shelf - lives and packaging innovations are one way to slice the problem , but there ’s also another possible root , one that combine portability , renewability , and even insolence : Perhaps astronauts could arise their own food .
An experimentknown as Veggieon the ISS has been prove just that idea , by allowing spaceman to grow a small amount of food in a sealed chamber . Thefirst crops of lettuce were a success , so much so that lolly has now been supply an , researchers desire to expand further to even more fruits and vegetables .
Of naturally , it ’s still a long way from salad grown in space . But , if successful , it could at least provide a welcome break from foil packs of rehydrated scrambled eggs .
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