April 7, 2021 • 43 mins
We owe so many innovations in food safety and technology to the simple fact that astronauts need to eat. In this classic episode, Anney and Lauren launch into the history (and sometimes questionable menus) of space food.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Favorit production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Anne Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have a classic episode for you about space, food, foods
and space. You have to say it that way, it's
legally required you do. Thank you for acknowledging that that
(00:29):
important by law. Annie. Yes, I'm just looking out. I'm
just looking out, uh yeah, to peek behind the curtain. Um. Before,
since we are recording separately in our home studios, we
do countdowns so we can sink up the audio later.
And it does always make me think of launching into
space because um. But also when I first started, everybody
(00:55):
has like their preferences on clapping and like starting, and
I remember I think it was Bryant from Stuff you
should know. Maybe not somebody was like, I don't like
a countdown. I'm not a rocket. It just stuck with
me to this day. It took me. It took me
(01:18):
a solid like eight or nine months to stop like
giggling about like are you ready for the clap um
because I'm very mature, yes, yes, yes, unrelated. So this
episode originally published back in October and focused mostly on
(01:41):
the the the history of foods in space, which has
mostly been UM highly packaged things, very processed things that
have been able to withstand the rigors of of space
travel UM and the specific weirdnesses that go along with it. UM.
But over the past couple of years there have been
UM some really interesting experiments about getting more fresh foods
(02:06):
into space. For example, there have been experiments on the
I S S the International Space Station to grow edible
plants in space. So far radishes, lettuces, cabbage, mustard, and
koe nice right good space salads. Also recent news UM.
(02:27):
In order to help out with that, or related to
helping out with that, I guess I should say UM.
Several species of bacteria have been found on the I
S S, including a few previously unrecorded UH species UM
that have been classified within the Methylobacterium genus, which here
on Earth do important things like help plants get nitrogen
(02:50):
out of the air and into like a plant usable form.
So that's cool and not the horror show that Annie
assumed it was going to be when she read that headline,
How did you know that you know me so well?
(03:12):
I think it's because you said it out loud, But
that could be it. That could be But but also
I do. I do just know you pretty well. And yeah,
when someone says undiscovered bacteria on the space station, like,
I know where your brain is gonna go, Like it
seems like the obvious conclusion. I see you and your
(03:38):
horror movie habit, I I understand. Um. Um. Also in
January of this year, NASA and the CISA, the Canadian
Space Agency launched uh. They launched so I'm sorry, UM
I wrote it and then I was like, oh, well,
(03:59):
hang out with you too much? Um. Now they launched
a program called the Deep Space Food Challenge UM, which
aims to encourage the development of food production technologies that
can help like a create tasty food with a minimum
of resources and waste to help feed a crew of
(04:19):
four astronauts on a three year round trip mission with
no resupply UM, and be uh like, do the same
thing here on Earth for populations that also don't have
good access to fresh foods right now. So yeah, it's
a pretty exciting project. UM. There's up to five hundred
thousand dollars and prizes here in the United States, and
Canada is offering prizes for their national entries to international
(04:42):
teams are also welcome to participate, but not for cash prizes,
I guess, and registration is still open. It is open
through May. So um. If you have an idea for
food and space and the technology with which to produce it,
go check it out Deep Space Food Challenge. Yeah, Deep
Space Food Challenge. I love it. I love it, and
(05:04):
definitely report back if you do. Oh my goodness, report
back if you do. Yeah. But in the meantime, I
guess we should let past Annie and Lauren take it away. Yes, yes, hello,
(05:31):
and welcome to food Stuff. I'm any Eares and I'm
Lauren Vogelbaum. And this is our episode of food Stuff
in Space. That's really high tech sound effects, only the
best food. So there's a lot to talk about here. Yeah,
get right into it. What is space food? It's food
(05:53):
for space travel. Yeah. And as we all learned in
the Simpsons episode Deep Space Homer, in which Homer Simpson
let's potato chips and then ants loose in a spacecraft,
you've got to take some special considerations before you take
food into space because the equipment up there is you know,
kind of delicate, and any kind of loose particles or
drops of liquid could just seriously muck things up in
(06:15):
the near zero gravity of orbit. And yes, I said
near zero gravity, it's not really zero gravity. There's always
gravity kind of kicking around. So a technical point, but
an important one because of science. Yes, So you've got
to give astronauts food that's well contained, you know, like
tortillas instead of bread to reduce crumbs. Things that are
(06:36):
sticky or what enough to not float out of their
containers or off of a utensil. Uh, stuff like scrambled
eggs or stews, or oatmeal seasoned with salt that's dissolved
in water, and pepper that's suspended in oil. Oh yeah. Um.
It's also got to be shelf stable because refrigeration systems
for food are generally considered too bulky or difficult or
(06:57):
energy consuming. It helps if the food is dehydrated and
therefore lightweight, because the cost per pound of sending stuff
into space is uh well hefty yeah pun intended, huh uh.
And modernly most water in space comes from reclaimed, recycled
sources instead of from supply runs. Also, you have to
(07:19):
make really like really sure that none of the packaging
or utensils or heating elements involved with your food might
create a spark that could start a fire. Uh, and
they want puncture any equipment. Don't want any of that.
And furthermore, the food has to be, you know, like
not so boring or so gross that the highly trained
scientists and flight specialists wind up starving themselves. Yeah, you
(07:42):
don't want that either. For travel to the International Space Station,
five months before emission, crew members do a taste test
of twenty to thirty things, ranking taste, texture, smell, appearance,
in color on a scale of one to nine, and
to make the cut of food needs to score a
six or higher. They can request some of their faith
at foods from home, and researchers will do what they
(08:02):
can to comply. For example, for Canadian Chris had Fields stay,
they added to the menu duck roulette and candied smoked salmon,
wild cought even and maple syrup cream cookies. Well, that
sounds delicious. Dietitians have to balance the need of space
as well. For instance, astronauts need calcium and vitamin D
(08:23):
for good bone health in a witless almost weightless environment,
but um and the less iron because you're making less
red blood cells in space. Space travel and the need
to feed astronauts in space has fueled a lot of
food and food processing innovations like thermostabilized our heat processed
foods that can come in cans or pouches, rehydratable foods
(08:45):
like soups or castroles, and your radiated meat. The the
irradiated means that it won't spoil, not that it's like Godzilla. Yeah,
that's what I thought at first, that would not be good.
It generally takes about thirty minutes to pre era to
like reconstitute and heat a space meal. Um, and a
lot of these innovations like freeze dried food went on
(09:08):
to become available to your you know, every day non
astronaut consumer like Lauren and I. We could, we could
probably do a whole other episode on like the technological
innovations from the space program that have benefited the food
industry earth side. Yeah, but that day is not today. Nope,
today is space side. I don't know if that makes sense,
(09:30):
but we're moving on with it. Current astronauts on the
International Space Station eat three meals and one snack per day.
The Johnson Space Centers Space Food Systems Laboratory comes up
with these menus for American astronauts, while the Russian Federal
Space Agency does the same for its cosmonauts. Most of
these meals are the just add water variety, similar to
the military's m R. E's. Some package foods a lot
(09:54):
of us are more familiar with make their way up
to space as well, like almonds or drinks. The draws
a lot cuprey son, which is what I thought of anyway.
UM food packages come with velcro, so astronauts can stick
to the velico steps on the galley table and it
won't float away. That'd be sad. I would be so
(10:14):
cross with my snack if it floated away. Astronauts uh
and costnots and etcetera also do sometimes receive fresh fruit
and vegetables from supply missions and care packages from family UM,
and these are serious treats. It's hard to to nail
down a finite cost of sending stuff to space because
there's so many factors that go into it. But you
(10:36):
can divide the cost of each launch by the weight
of the cargo each craft can carry to get a
kind of rough idea. Uh So, so you know that
the cost will differ depend on the type of craft
being used. But the low end of the range is
nine thousand dollars per pound of food. Well, that's the
low end. Huh yeah yeah, and and a pound equals
(10:57):
about half a kilo UM for for our metric friend,
um that the high end. The high end is over
forty three thousand dollars per pound, no boy, which means
that sending a single fresh lemon to space can cost
about ten grand. I would enjoy that lemon so much though, right,
cocktails in space, So actually we've got a segment on
(11:19):
that later. Um. The total food eaten by astronauts, yes,
on average, each gets about three point eight pounds including
the packaging. They probably don't eat the packaging per day um,
which equals out to about uh somewhere between nineteen hundred
and thirty two hundred calories, depending on the person's specific
needs and the food items that have been sent to space.
(11:41):
The most are M and M's with over one thirty
chips since nine one, but they call them chocolate coated candies.
I think something like that, followed by a high tech
food trade that could heat itself and came with a
collapsible bottle called the sky Lab Food System. And coming
in third is the iconic astronaut powdered drink makes tang yes,
(12:06):
courtesy of the dry cabin decreased sense of smell unless
your atmosphere space. Human ability to taste is lowered by
thirty in space, which is why foods loaded up with
spices have been and are some of the most popular.
Apparently shrimp cocktail is just white. No, that kept coming up. Yeah.
Part of what's going on here, not with a shrimp cocktail,
(12:27):
but with your your face is that in near zero
gravity that the blood that your heart is trained to
work really hard at pulling up from your legs tends
to kind of accumulate in your head more than it
usually would, which means that your sciences get kind of
swollen and your nose stuffs up. Another part is that
sense don't waft the same way in near zero gravity. Also,
(12:49):
freeze drying foods can destroy some of the compounds that
create sent in flavor. So you've got that to contend with. Yeah,
and of course you've got to have water. As of
the I s SH International Space Station, if we haven't
said that previously, I'm not sure. Anyway, carried about two
thousand liters a little bit over five gallons of water,
but also reclaimed and recycled as much as of the
(13:12):
water used by its astronauts. Uh. The station collects the
condensation from breath and sweat and the runoff from showers,
and on the American side of the station they even
collect urine from astronauts and lab animals. Um. That all
gets filtered so that it winds up being cleaner than
most of what we drink here on Earth. One thing
that the Russians and Americans have classically disagreed on is
(13:33):
how best to filter all of that recycled water. And
they flat out refuse the yarine thing. They're like, Nope,
that's gross, you're terrible. Um. But but but the filtering
gets done. And of course water isn't the only thing
available to drink on the space station. Stuff like coffee, tea,
and juice usually come in powdered form and then are
reconstituted the ever important coffee. Oh yeah, Oh, there's a
(13:55):
whole bit about that later too. Uh, And we're going
to get to that kind of so, but first let's
get to a quick break for a word from our sponsor.
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So
(14:16):
let's talk a bit about the origins of space food
space food goes back about as far as the US
and Russian space programs of the nineteen sixties. Oh, we're
not going to talk about ancient Romans. Pliny didn't have
anything to say about it. I know plenty. Come on,
we're not going to mention Christopher Columbus this whole episode,
except I just did. Oh oh yeah, Okay. Obviously, if
(14:38):
you're going to send people to space for more than
a few hours, you're gonna have to feed them somehow.
In addressing this, NASA developed a program called the Hazard
Analysis Critical Control Point or h a c c P,
and the purpose of a a c c P was
to prevent food safety issues by employing a seven steps
science space system when preparing food, and this system is
(15:00):
now a requirement in the US for all meat, seafood, poultry,
and juice processors. By the way, the first meal ever
eaten in space was by the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
in April of nineteen sixty one, and it consisted of
a tube of beef and liver paste and then a
tube of chocolate sauce for dessert. You've got to have dessert,
(15:22):
you did even in space. Um, the Friendship seven. In
nineteen sixty two, John Glenn became the first American to
eat in space, and the historic first food he consumed
was apple sauce. Yeah, and period beef and vegetables, both
squeezed appetizingly out of aluminum tubes sort of like a
little toothpaste tube share sucked up through a straw that
(15:45):
fit into a porthole in Glenn's helmet. A nineteen sixty
two New York Times article documented what seems like every
detail extensively, including the exact time he started in on
his first tube, and the food was described thusly. His
two course meal consisted of a beef vegetable mixture and
(16:05):
apple sauce. His squeeze food was semi solid, which means
it was pretty much like baby food, but with adult
seasoning okay and sugar added, and with the flexible to
and nozzle. Colonel Glenn did not run into the exasperation
of catchup bottleneck, for who among us has not struggled
(16:26):
but catch up bottleneck. The aluminum tube was developed by
the American Canned Company Container Scientist. These tubes have been
developed by the company in the nineteen forties for World
War two fighter pilots. All this stuff was and would
continue to be, based on military survival rations. It was
kind of crazy frontier science. Though. One of Glenn's missions
(16:48):
while he was up there was to see whether he
could sip water. What if he couldn't have he could,
but he got it. It would have been a sad
day for space travel. Oh my goodness, talent you um.
He His flight also marked the first leftovers in space,
a tube of spaghetti that he chose not to eat.
I wonder why, I don't know. A year earlier, in
(17:12):
nineteen sixty one, Whirlpool Whirlpool Corporation, Yes that Whirlpool, showed
off their space kitchen at a convention. This thing was
a compact ten by seven point five foot cylinder or
three by two meters, and it had a refrigerator, freezer disposal,
and water system made to last the food and drink
(17:32):
needs for fourteen day mission. They fulfilled over three hundred
contracts with their space kitchen from nineteen fifty seven to
nineteen seventy three. Okay, yeah. In nineteen sixty three, a
scientist named Sydney A. Schwartz came up with an idea
of making space capsules either entirely or partly out of
(17:54):
edible materials. Okay, Willy Wonka scene, all right, yep, it
was a spacecraft made out of food. A Newsweek article
out of that year purports that he came up with
a recipe of five dollars worth of groceries like cornstarch, flour,
banana flakes, hominy, powdered milk that could be baked up
(18:15):
in a four degree hydraulic press with three thousand pounds
of pressure, and the result was a slab that didn't
splinter when drilled into or solid and for space travel.
Shorts suggested it as a cheap material for things like cabinets,
and yes, you could eat it. You um, you just
added water after you've ground up the slab in the powder.
(18:38):
Shwortz claimed it tasted like banana topped cereal. Interesting idea.
I like the creativity. That's great. Yeah, Well, moving on
from edible spacecraft, that's the ultimate space food. For the
mid sixties Jim and I Apollo and Mercury missions, astronauts
(19:01):
were given dehydrated and freeze dried cubes along with the tubes.
These bite sized cubes were meant to provide an eating
experience closer to Earth's and they came coated in in
edible film that kept crumbs, those troublesome crumbs from floating
about and mucking things up. And they came with nozzles
at the edge of the pouch and instructions on how
much water you needed to rehydrate. In nineteen sixty four
(19:27):
Los Angeles Times articled detailed some of the complications and
necessities for designing food for space. No carbonation because at
low pressure and high altitudes gas expands into your belly.
The whole crumb issue getting the right balance of nutrients.
The general girl at the time was sevent protein, carbon, hydrates,
(19:48):
and fat, and of the moisture was removed to reduce
weight and prevent sooiliage. There was also transport and space
constraints along with the balancing of the psychological need to eat,
as the article described it, that's one of the reasons
the idea of food and pill form was rejected and
(20:09):
the food didn't taste great. The first astronaut to try
the freeze dried stuff, Gordon Cooper, only eight six of
his two thousand, three sixty nine calories for a thirty
four hour mission. Who and all the astronauts of the
nineteen sixty three Mercury mission returned with uneaten food. The
(20:30):
Soviets developed a wider menu a little bit more quickly
than Americans, although they stuck largely with the tube delivery
system UM. They expanded to thirty options thirty of tubes
in those early years, and and also offered um some other,
some other actual kind of solid food, rolls that could
be eaten in a single bite, pieces of salami, and
drinks like berry juice and beet juice. By the time
(20:55):
the nineteen six five Gemini mission rolled around, they were
given more variety the American anyway. From that same Los
Angeles Times article, the two thousand calorie four meal a
day sample menu might look something like this meal a
sugar frosted flakes, sausage patties, toast squares and orange grapefruit juice, meal, bee, tuna, salad, cheese, sandwiches,
(21:18):
apricot pudding and grape juice. You'll see beef, pot rose,
carrots and cream, sauce, toasted bread cubes, pineapple cubes and
tea and meal d potato, soup, chicken bits, squares, apple sauce, brownies,
and grape fruit juice grapefruit juice near twice popular. The
(21:41):
astronauts injected the pouches with water from the water gun
and needed it to the proper consistency, cut open the
pouch to get to a plastic tube for squeezing out
the food, and then once finished, sealed it again with
a tablet inside that prevented rotting. You really didn't want that.
Each meal came with two sticks of gum and a
towel soaked with an antibacterial substance. Yes, these packages could
(22:05):
last two years at least. And then John W. Young
snuck a corned beef sandwich aboard the GYMNI three in
n first sandwich in space yep, and it necessitated a
mandatory astronaut inventory before each mission. Mannessa was so displeased
(22:26):
about it. They were really were They were not entertained. Nope.
The apollomissions um, the first one to line on the Moon,
saw even greater leaps in terms of taste of space food.
The new space amenity hot water made rehydrating foods easier
and faster, and then improved the flavor. Sure, hot hot
(22:49):
foods are hot sometimes, yeah, which is awesome. Another innovation
was the spoon bowl, which is what it sounds like.
The food stuck to the spoon thanks to the moisture
left over from rehydration. That's cool. Wet packs aluminium or
plastic pouches that kept food moist and didn't require rehydration
were introduced as well, and then a follow seven. This
(23:13):
is the mission with perhaps one of the most famous
space foods astronaut ice cream, freeze dried ice cream. Yes, yes,
it was a crew request of the Night mission, but
freeze dried ice cream only made one trip to space.
Why m hmm, because most of the crew didn't like it.
The texture was all around, the taste kind of flaw.
(23:34):
They said it was like styrofoam. I mean it was.
It wasn't like ice cream at all. But it's great.
As a kid, I loved this stuff so much. I
haven't had it in like decades, but I'm not sure
i've ever had it. Is diffing dots? Is that what
that is? No? Okay, well then that's what I've had.
(23:55):
I haven't had the I've seen it. It's like a
block of Neapolitan ice cream. Okay, we'll have to get some. Okay,
I'm down. The crew of Apollo eight enjoyed thermos stabilized
turkey and gravy, cranberry sauce and fruitcake on Christmas Eve
nineteen sixty eight as they orbited around the Moon. What
a great great view while you have your turkey, thermos
(24:16):
stabilized turkey, all the comforts of home. I know. The
beloved bacon square was the first food item consumed on
the Moon in nineteen sixty nine, and moon diets had
to be high in potassium to prevent any irregularities and
heart rhythm. I don't know if the bacon cue helped
with that, but perhaps it did. The first Russian cosmonauts
(24:40):
had food options, harkening back to the first American missions, mostly,
like Lawrence said, out of tubes. Mr dried on later missions.
In nineteen one, a Russian cosmonauts celebrated the birthday of
Victor Pots with tubes of prune paste and a smuggled
lemon and onion. What a birthday more smuggling, I know.
(25:03):
Apollo eleven introduced a contingency feeding system of liquids eaten
through an opening in the helmet should the cabin become depressurized. Yeah,
a canteen that granted astronauts um of drinking water. I wrote,
granted of drinking water while working on the Moon was
added to the space suits for a follow thirteen and
(25:25):
Apollo fifteen moonwalkers were given africat bars to tide them
over a while on the lunar surface. This was also
the first mission that had no leftovers props to them.
Before Apollo, the average weight loss per astronaut was three
to four pounds, sometimes up to ten pounds, although that
doesn't just have to do with with a lack of
food intake. Of course, the muscle wasting. They hadn't quite
(25:49):
figured out how to how to combat that or even
what was going on at that point yet. Um As
of nineteen nine, though, NASA's space food still left a
little bit of something to be desired. After living on
Apollo programmed food for three days, NASA Spacecraft project manager
Don Arabian reported that he had quote lost the will
(26:09):
to live and that the sausage patties tasted like granulated rubber.
That doesn't sound like something I would enjoy either, But
more innovations were coming. Yes. The next big thing in
space food occurred with the nineteen seventy three Skylab mission,
which came with a designated dining area, so astronauts could
(26:31):
sit down thanks to foot straps, at a table and eat,
and with the help of solar powered cells, Skylab was
the first to have a freezer and refrigeration. This meant
more choice for the astronauts seventy two more choices. In fact,
warming trays debut on this mission. To These trays could
be attached via vel grow to the astronauts lab or
(26:52):
to the wall, and they allowed for eating several things
at once without the tray, and opened pouch had to
be finished off before you could open an other one.
Astronauts could even design their own menu as long as
it met the requirements of a dietitian, and liquid salt
and pepper were introduced on this mission. The standard menu
cycled every seven days, and setting up a meal at
(27:14):
this time took thirty minutes. Sky Lab also had a
pantry with an extra two thousand, one hundred calories for
two days for each person in the case of bad
weather or another event that unexpectedly extended the mission. There's
also a backup with enough food to last the crew
for three weeks, called the safe Haven system. During the
(27:36):
American Soviet mission of nineteen seventy five astronauts eight things
like jellied beef, tongue, borshed and caviare. And then in Nive,
a Mexican payload specialist by the name of Faldo nari
Vela introduced a serious innovation to his fellow NASA Space
Shuttle astronauts, the flower tortilla. What after he requested them
(28:00):
for his mission and they were a hit with the
other astronauts. NASA set to developing a more long lasting
version of the tortilla, you know, so things could be
shelf stable for a few months. Um. They wound up
using tortillas from a manufacturer that sells to Taco Bell,
which had come out with a twelve month shelf stable
product in the nineteen nineties. Um, though they say that
they do use fresh tortillas for short missions. Astronauts Sandra
(28:25):
Magnus wrote in two thousand eight, I cannot think of
anything that cannot be put on a tortilla or has
not been put on a tortilla. You really want to
be swimming in tortillas for your whole increment? Wow, passionate
feelings about tortillas in space I understand as the duration
of missions lengthened. New packaging was developed, a trash compactor
(28:47):
was developed. Yeah in the galley was redesigned, and the
electronics updated. Both the weight and volume were reduced. Coca
Cola experimented with ways to get the perfect carbonated beverage
in space, despite that whole weird gas expansion thing um
on space Shuttle missions in the eighties and nineties, sending
space cans and a soda fountain. They haven't quite got
(29:10):
it right yet, though. The carbon dioxide bubbles and stuff
like SODA's mixed randomly with the surrounding liquid when it's
in space, meaning that they're usually more like foam than
they are drink And unfortunately, even if you can get
it right and you know, like drink it, carbonation really
isn't cool in near zero gravity. Um On on Earth,
(29:32):
gravity draws the liquid in a coke or you know,
like a beer or whatever, to the bottom of your stomach,
while the carbon dioxide gases will rise to the top
and come out in burps. In in low gravity, though,
the liquid in the air mix and your burps come
out wet, oh or the gases pass into your digestive system,
(29:54):
which might cause adverse effects. Neither of which I'm not
even sure which one I want less, I'll take neither. Yes,
thank you neither for the wind. Nowadays, the category of
space food has expanded so much. From period paste squeezed
from tubes. For each six months spent on I S S,
(30:14):
crew members get to choose in nine preference containers. I
like the sound of that, from a main menu of
over two items. Those items run the gambit from Japanese takeout,
Swedish meatballs, tortillas, space kimchi, and the ever popular shrimp cocktail.
NASA has sixty thermo stabilized foods and fifty freeze dried
(30:35):
products under their belt, and famous chefs like Emerald Lagassi
have helped create some space food recipes. On Holiday's crew
has allowed special request and they get special treat packages
and by friends or families called psychological support kits. Charles
Simionium paid sixty million for two visits to the I
(30:57):
S S and two thousand six two thousand seven. He's
a rich software guy fy I, and he brought with
him m duck breast quail and Similina cake prepared by
Elaine Ducas. That's probably the fanciest meal consumed in space
to date, and an unmanned resupply rocket carrying six pounds
(31:18):
of equipment in one thousand, three hundred sixty pounds of
food exploded in October. Yeah, that kind of hurt my
heart when I read it. Yeah, in the first Italian
woman to go to space, as Samantha Christopher Ready drank
the first legit space espresso on the I S s um.
The machine was a joint experiment by the Italian Space Agency,
(31:42):
engineering firm Agritech Yes and UH coffee company Lavasa. The
project took two years to complete. Of course, it can
also make hot tea and consumm a um. But but
even though the system is way different than earth bound machines,
you can even get a waft of coffee scent from
your cup or the pouch. The pouches designed to emit
(32:03):
odor when you insert your straw. That sounds gross, but
I bet it's lovely. It's just a weird way to
think about it. The pouch omits odor. And with that
we do have some more for you, including booze in space.
Has it been there? Of course it has. But first
we're going to take another quick break for a word
(32:24):
from our sponsor and we're back, Thank you sponsor. Okay,
So booze in space. Obviously, you don't want a bunch
of astronauts floating around drunk while they're supposed to be,
(32:44):
you know, sciencing and like staying alive. But of course
there's been booze in space of course. UM. Russian cosmonauts
had cognac and their rations during the early days of
the space age. UM One reported that their doctors had
recommended it. Uh quote we we used. We used it
to stimulate our immune system and on the whole to
(33:06):
keep our organisms in tone, in tone. The first liquid
poured and perhaps consumed on the Moon was actually wine.
Buzz Aldren, who was an elder at his Presbyterian church,
arranged to take communion on the Sunday that he and
Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon. Before they left the
lunar module, he took the wine and bread and radioed
(33:29):
a message back to Earth. It wound up not being
broadcast due to some pr trouble that NASA was having
regarding separation of church and state. Um. But what he
said was, I would like to request a few moments
of silence and to invite each person listening in wherever
and whomever they may be, to pause for a moment
and contemplate the events of the past few hours, and
(33:49):
to give thanks in his or her own way, which
I think is lovely. Yeah. Um. In the early seventies,
with the sky Lab overhaul of the NASA menu, food
researchers tried their darndest to include wine with their menu offerings,
a four ounce ration every four days. They settled on
sherry because, as it's already been heated during production, they
(34:12):
figured it would be the least damaged by the space
packaging process. But the plan went seriously sideways. Uh. First
of all, when public. When the public got wind of
the idea, um, some some people got really upset. They
didn't like the concept of astronauts, these these you know,
these all American heroes that are children are watching. They
(34:33):
didn't like the thought of them drinking. Secondly, when NASA
tested the sherry on a low gravity plane, um, let
me let me quote Charles Borland, a space food engineer,
The odors were leased by the wine, combined with the
residual smell of years worth of people getting sick on
the plane, had an unplanned effect on the crew. Many
(34:56):
grabbed for their bath bags. The sherry was not sent
to space. NASA would later outlaw any drinking in space
from its astronauts, and the official I S S statement
on booze in space is that because alcohol is a
volatile compound, astronauts drinking could muss up their water recycling program,
(35:20):
but that does not preclude alcohol from being used experimentally.
One microbiology project out of the University of Colorado, through
NASA's Space Product Development, brewed a wee batch of beer
in space. Huh. It's east cell count was kind of low,
and there was more of one of the yeast's proteins
than usual. The researchers aren't sure why that's interesting. More
(35:43):
they think it might be like a stress response protein.
The east were like, I know, right, or feeling something
for use this interesting. Whiskey maker Art Beg sent a
few vials of Scotch whiskey distillate plus oak shaving oak
cask shavings up to the I S S to see
(36:03):
how microgravity would affect the flavors pulled from barrels during aging.
And yes, the shavings part is unusual. Don't worry. They
also kept a few vials on Earth as a control.
Near zero gravity seemed to inhibit the extraction of some
compounds from the wood, leading to an unusual balance of
flavor compounds overall in the whiskey. Um. When they tested
(36:27):
both samples back on Earth, yes, they drank the space whiskey.
The Earth sample smelled and tasted like art beg um.
The space sample was basically totally different. And Okay, I'm
gonna quote the kind of extensive tasting notes from both
samples because it's just super fascinating to me. Okay, So,
Earth sample aroma very woody, hints of cedar, sweet smoke
(36:50):
and aged balsamic vinegar, hints of raisins, chuckle, toffee of
vanilla and burnt oranges. Taste dry palette, woody balsamic flavor,
sweet smoke and clove oil, a distant fruitiness, prunes, dates, uh,
some charcoal and antiseptic notes. The aftertaste is long, lingering
and typically ard beg, with flavors of gentle smoke, briarwood, tar,
(37:13):
and some sweet creamy fudge. Sounds lovely um from the
I s s sample aroma intense and rounded with notes
of antiseptic smoke, rubber, smoked fish, and a curious, perfumed
note like a cassius or violet, powerful woody notes, hints
of graphite and some vanilla. This then leads into very
(37:36):
earthy soil notes, a savory beefy aroma, and then hints
of rum and raisin flavored ice cream taste a very
focused flavor profile with smoked fruits, prunes, raisins, sugar plums
and cherries, earthy pete, smoke, peppermint, aniseed cinnamon, and smoked
bacon or hickory smoked ham. The aftertaste is pungent, intense,
(37:57):
and long, with hints of wood, antiseptic lozenges and rubbery smoke.
Robbery smoke. I mean, that's a lot of word salad,
but like, but they were just distinctly different, and I
think that's great. Yeah, space whiskey science. That's some fascinating
science right there. Yeah, more research is clearly necessary and
(38:22):
uh one one study with with rats from suggested that
a compound founded red wines um reservera troll could help
astronauts stave off the muscle waste that happens without rigorous
exercise in low gravity and environments. UM so maybe in
the future with longer space missions, bringing along a little
bit of wine wouldn't be considered it superfluous. Let us
(38:45):
all forget about supplements. Yeah, yeah, forget about those things.
But hey, speaking of the future, let's talk about the future. Yes.
So now that NASA and other space traveling intoity are
planning missions with even longer durations, like um, I don't know,
mission to Mars. One of the main goals is to
(39:07):
take the current eighteen months shelf life of foods and
extend it to five years. Yeah. One option that NASA
is looking at would have crew members building a hydroponic
growth lab and growing fresh produce inside. This would be
a solution for menu fatigue, which on a year plus
long mission becomes a real concern. Cooking in space, however,
(39:29):
really difficult, if not impossible, thanks to that whole gravity thing,
along with the host of energy and space considerations like
like area space not space. Yeah, I didn't even think
about that. The journey to Mars would take about two
and a half years, by the way, and require somewhere
around twelve tons of food. Yes, people eat man, that's crazy, okay, Yeah,
(39:53):
potentially sent to Mars separately before the human crew takes off.
UM A form experiment conducted examined that the implications and
limitations of astronauts cooking their own food. The stipulations were
among the six crew members. Food could only be cooked
on certain days, only shelf stable products like honey our
(40:15):
rice could be used, and only a limited amount of
energy expanded on things like a hot plate. All the
participants preferred days when they cook something because they said
it allowed for creativity and social bonding. A few projects
have been looking into three D printing as a potential
solution to cooking in space. That the basic idea is
that you could use good old tubes of food stuff
(40:37):
as ingredients and that that the printer could make those
into different dishes. We'll have to do a whole episode
about about three D food printing sometime. Yes, it's pretty great.
I'm so on board with red romaine. Lettuce became the
first crop grown and eaten space. Three crew members toasted
their lettuce after dipping the pieces in olive oil. I know,
(40:59):
and they were quite satisfied with the taste. I do
remember when this happened being in the news. Longer missions
also expand on the nutrient deficiency problem, like shrinking bones
and squashed eyeballs. I didn't look into that, but I
saw it and it scared me. Oh yeah, my microgravity
does things to your eyeballs that I don't want squashed eyeballs.
(41:22):
I don't want like astronauts getting that that. This sounds terrible. No, no, no,
no one, No one deserves a squashed eyeball. Um, there's
if there's anything we've learned from Game of Thrones. Uh.
By the way, UM, if you are interested in the
kind of history part of all of this, there's a
really terrific textbook called The Astronauts Cookbook that was co
written by um, by that guy I quoted earlier about
(41:44):
the about the Sherry Um who worked in NASA's space
food program for thirty years. So he has a lot
of stories in there. Look it up, check it out.
And other than that, that wraps up our episode on
space food. Yeah, that was a crash course and that
concludes this classic episode where many space puns were made,
(42:09):
sound effects were had. Welcome back Food, Astronauts to the
here and now. We hope you had an excellent journey
on spaceship saver spaceships, what a weird spaceship it would be,
but fun. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Um.
(42:37):
If you would like to contact us, as always, we
would love to hear from you. Our email is hello
at saver pod dot com. We're also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
saver pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
my Heart Radio, you can visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
(42:58):
Thanks as always to our superproduce hers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we have
that lots more good things are coming your way. H
Hello, and welcome to Favorit production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Anne Reese and I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today we
have a classic episode for you about space, food, foods
and space. You have to say it that way, it's
legally required you do. Thank you for acknowledging that that
(00:29):
important by law. Annie. Yes, I'm just looking out. I'm
just looking out, uh yeah, to peek behind the curtain. Um. Before,
since we are recording separately in our home studios, we
do countdowns so we can sink up the audio later.
And it does always make me think of launching into
space because um. But also when I first started, everybody
(00:55):
has like their preferences on clapping and like starting, and
I remember I think it was Bryant from Stuff you
should know. Maybe not somebody was like, I don't like
a countdown. I'm not a rocket. It just stuck with
me to this day. It took me. It took me
(01:18):
a solid like eight or nine months to stop like
giggling about like are you ready for the clap um
because I'm very mature, yes, yes, yes, unrelated. So this
episode originally published back in October and focused mostly on
(01:41):
the the the history of foods in space, which has
mostly been UM highly packaged things, very processed things that
have been able to withstand the rigors of of space
travel UM and the specific weirdnesses that go along with it. UM.
But over the past couple of years there have been
UM some really interesting experiments about getting more fresh foods
(02:06):
into space. For example, there have been experiments on the
I S S the International Space Station to grow edible
plants in space. So far radishes, lettuces, cabbage, mustard, and
koe nice right good space salads. Also recent news UM.
(02:27):
In order to help out with that, or related to
helping out with that, I guess I should say UM.
Several species of bacteria have been found on the I
S S, including a few previously unrecorded UH species UM
that have been classified within the Methylobacterium genus, which here
on Earth do important things like help plants get nitrogen
(02:50):
out of the air and into like a plant usable form.
So that's cool and not the horror show that Annie
assumed it was going to be when she read that headline,
How did you know that you know me so well?
(03:12):
I think it's because you said it out loud, But
that could be it. That could be But but also
I do. I do just know you pretty well. And yeah,
when someone says undiscovered bacteria on the space station, like,
I know where your brain is gonna go, Like it
seems like the obvious conclusion. I see you and your
(03:38):
horror movie habit, I I understand. Um. Um. Also in
January of this year, NASA and the CISA, the Canadian
Space Agency launched uh. They launched so I'm sorry, UM
I wrote it and then I was like, oh, well,
(03:59):
hang out with you too much? Um. Now they launched
a program called the Deep Space Food Challenge UM, which
aims to encourage the development of food production technologies that
can help like a create tasty food with a minimum
of resources and waste to help feed a crew of
(04:19):
four astronauts on a three year round trip mission with
no resupply UM, and be uh like, do the same
thing here on Earth for populations that also don't have
good access to fresh foods right now. So yeah, it's
a pretty exciting project. UM. There's up to five hundred
thousand dollars and prizes here in the United States, and
Canada is offering prizes for their national entries to international
(04:42):
teams are also welcome to participate, but not for cash prizes,
I guess, and registration is still open. It is open
through May. So um. If you have an idea for
food and space and the technology with which to produce it,
go check it out Deep Space Food Challenge. Yeah, Deep
Space Food Challenge. I love it. I love it, and
(05:04):
definitely report back if you do. Oh my goodness, report
back if you do. Yeah. But in the meantime, I
guess we should let past Annie and Lauren take it away. Yes, yes, hello,
(05:31):
and welcome to food Stuff. I'm any Eares and I'm
Lauren Vogelbaum. And this is our episode of food Stuff
in Space. That's really high tech sound effects, only the
best food. So there's a lot to talk about here. Yeah,
get right into it. What is space food? It's food
(05:53):
for space travel. Yeah. And as we all learned in
the Simpsons episode Deep Space Homer, in which Homer Simpson
let's potato chips and then ants loose in a spacecraft,
you've got to take some special considerations before you take
food into space because the equipment up there is you know,
kind of delicate, and any kind of loose particles or
drops of liquid could just seriously muck things up in
(06:15):
the near zero gravity of orbit. And yes, I said
near zero gravity, it's not really zero gravity. There's always
gravity kind of kicking around. So a technical point, but
an important one because of science. Yes, So you've got
to give astronauts food that's well contained, you know, like
tortillas instead of bread to reduce crumbs. Things that are
(06:36):
sticky or what enough to not float out of their
containers or off of a utensil. Uh, stuff like scrambled
eggs or stews, or oatmeal seasoned with salt that's dissolved
in water, and pepper that's suspended in oil. Oh yeah. Um.
It's also got to be shelf stable because refrigeration systems
for food are generally considered too bulky or difficult or
(06:57):
energy consuming. It helps if the food is dehydrated and
therefore lightweight, because the cost per pound of sending stuff
into space is uh well hefty yeah pun intended, huh uh.
And modernly most water in space comes from reclaimed, recycled
sources instead of from supply runs. Also, you have to
(07:19):
make really like really sure that none of the packaging
or utensils or heating elements involved with your food might
create a spark that could start a fire. Uh, and
they want puncture any equipment. Don't want any of that.
And furthermore, the food has to be, you know, like
not so boring or so gross that the highly trained
scientists and flight specialists wind up starving themselves. Yeah, you
(07:42):
don't want that either. For travel to the International Space Station,
five months before emission, crew members do a taste test
of twenty to thirty things, ranking taste, texture, smell, appearance,
in color on a scale of one to nine, and
to make the cut of food needs to score a
six or higher. They can request some of their faith
at foods from home, and researchers will do what they
(08:02):
can to comply. For example, for Canadian Chris had Fields stay,
they added to the menu duck roulette and candied smoked salmon,
wild cought even and maple syrup cream cookies. Well, that
sounds delicious. Dietitians have to balance the need of space
as well. For instance, astronauts need calcium and vitamin D
(08:23):
for good bone health in a witless almost weightless environment,
but um and the less iron because you're making less
red blood cells in space. Space travel and the need
to feed astronauts in space has fueled a lot of
food and food processing innovations like thermostabilized our heat processed
foods that can come in cans or pouches, rehydratable foods
(08:45):
like soups or castroles, and your radiated meat. The the
irradiated means that it won't spoil, not that it's like Godzilla. Yeah,
that's what I thought at first, that would not be good.
It generally takes about thirty minutes to pre era to
like reconstitute and heat a space meal. Um, and a
lot of these innovations like freeze dried food went on
(09:08):
to become available to your you know, every day non
astronaut consumer like Lauren and I. We could, we could
probably do a whole other episode on like the technological
innovations from the space program that have benefited the food
industry earth side. Yeah, but that day is not today. Nope,
today is space side. I don't know if that makes sense,
(09:30):
but we're moving on with it. Current astronauts on the
International Space Station eat three meals and one snack per day.
The Johnson Space Centers Space Food Systems Laboratory comes up
with these menus for American astronauts, while the Russian Federal
Space Agency does the same for its cosmonauts. Most of
these meals are the just add water variety, similar to
the military's m R. E's. Some package foods a lot
(09:54):
of us are more familiar with make their way up
to space as well, like almonds or drinks. The draws
a lot cuprey son, which is what I thought of anyway.
UM food packages come with velcro, so astronauts can stick
to the velico steps on the galley table and it
won't float away. That'd be sad. I would be so
(10:14):
cross with my snack if it floated away. Astronauts uh
and costnots and etcetera also do sometimes receive fresh fruit
and vegetables from supply missions and care packages from family UM,
and these are serious treats. It's hard to to nail
down a finite cost of sending stuff to space because
there's so many factors that go into it. But you
(10:36):
can divide the cost of each launch by the weight
of the cargo each craft can carry to get a
kind of rough idea. Uh So, so you know that
the cost will differ depend on the type of craft
being used. But the low end of the range is
nine thousand dollars per pound of food. Well, that's the
low end. Huh yeah yeah, and and a pound equals
(10:57):
about half a kilo UM for for our metric friend,
um that the high end. The high end is over
forty three thousand dollars per pound, no boy, which means
that sending a single fresh lemon to space can cost
about ten grand. I would enjoy that lemon so much though, right,
cocktails in space, So actually we've got a segment on
(11:19):
that later. Um. The total food eaten by astronauts, yes,
on average, each gets about three point eight pounds including
the packaging. They probably don't eat the packaging per day um,
which equals out to about uh somewhere between nineteen hundred
and thirty two hundred calories, depending on the person's specific
needs and the food items that have been sent to space.
(11:41):
The most are M and M's with over one thirty
chips since nine one, but they call them chocolate coated candies.
I think something like that, followed by a high tech
food trade that could heat itself and came with a
collapsible bottle called the sky Lab Food System. And coming
in third is the iconic astronaut powdered drink makes tang yes,
(12:06):
courtesy of the dry cabin decreased sense of smell unless
your atmosphere space. Human ability to taste is lowered by
thirty in space, which is why foods loaded up with
spices have been and are some of the most popular.
Apparently shrimp cocktail is just white. No, that kept coming up. Yeah.
Part of what's going on here, not with a shrimp cocktail,
(12:27):
but with your your face is that in near zero
gravity that the blood that your heart is trained to
work really hard at pulling up from your legs tends
to kind of accumulate in your head more than it
usually would, which means that your sciences get kind of
swollen and your nose stuffs up. Another part is that
sense don't waft the same way in near zero gravity. Also,
(12:49):
freeze drying foods can destroy some of the compounds that
create sent in flavor. So you've got that to contend with. Yeah,
and of course you've got to have water. As of
the I s SH International Space Station, if we haven't
said that previously, I'm not sure. Anyway, carried about two
thousand liters a little bit over five gallons of water,
but also reclaimed and recycled as much as of the
(13:12):
water used by its astronauts. Uh. The station collects the
condensation from breath and sweat and the runoff from showers,
and on the American side of the station they even
collect urine from astronauts and lab animals. Um. That all
gets filtered so that it winds up being cleaner than
most of what we drink here on Earth. One thing
that the Russians and Americans have classically disagreed on is
(13:33):
how best to filter all of that recycled water. And
they flat out refuse the yarine thing. They're like, Nope,
that's gross, you're terrible. Um. But but but the filtering
gets done. And of course water isn't the only thing
available to drink on the space station. Stuff like coffee, tea,
and juice usually come in powdered form and then are
reconstituted the ever important coffee. Oh yeah, Oh, there's a
(13:55):
whole bit about that later too. Uh, And we're going
to get to that kind of so, but first let's
get to a quick break for a word from our sponsor.
And we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you. So
(14:16):
let's talk a bit about the origins of space food
space food goes back about as far as the US
and Russian space programs of the nineteen sixties. Oh, we're
not going to talk about ancient Romans. Pliny didn't have
anything to say about it. I know plenty. Come on,
we're not going to mention Christopher Columbus this whole episode,
except I just did. Oh oh yeah, Okay. Obviously, if
(14:38):
you're going to send people to space for more than
a few hours, you're gonna have to feed them somehow.
In addressing this, NASA developed a program called the Hazard
Analysis Critical Control Point or h a c c P,
and the purpose of a a c c P was
to prevent food safety issues by employing a seven steps
science space system when preparing food, and this system is
(15:00):
now a requirement in the US for all meat, seafood, poultry,
and juice processors. By the way, the first meal ever
eaten in space was by the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin
in April of nineteen sixty one, and it consisted of
a tube of beef and liver paste and then a
tube of chocolate sauce for dessert. You've got to have dessert,
(15:22):
you did even in space. Um, the Friendship seven. In
nineteen sixty two, John Glenn became the first American to
eat in space, and the historic first food he consumed
was apple sauce. Yeah, and period beef and vegetables, both
squeezed appetizingly out of aluminum tubes sort of like a
little toothpaste tube share sucked up through a straw that
(15:45):
fit into a porthole in Glenn's helmet. A nineteen sixty
two New York Times article documented what seems like every
detail extensively, including the exact time he started in on
his first tube, and the food was described thusly. His
two course meal consisted of a beef vegetable mixture and
(16:05):
apple sauce. His squeeze food was semi solid, which means
it was pretty much like baby food, but with adult
seasoning okay and sugar added, and with the flexible to
and nozzle. Colonel Glenn did not run into the exasperation
of catchup bottleneck, for who among us has not struggled
(16:26):
but catch up bottleneck. The aluminum tube was developed by
the American Canned Company Container Scientist. These tubes have been
developed by the company in the nineteen forties for World
War two fighter pilots. All this stuff was and would
continue to be, based on military survival rations. It was
kind of crazy frontier science. Though. One of Glenn's missions
(16:48):
while he was up there was to see whether he
could sip water. What if he couldn't have he could,
but he got it. It would have been a sad
day for space travel. Oh my goodness, talent you um.
He His flight also marked the first leftovers in space,
a tube of spaghetti that he chose not to eat.
I wonder why, I don't know. A year earlier, in
(17:12):
nineteen sixty one, Whirlpool Whirlpool Corporation, Yes that Whirlpool, showed
off their space kitchen at a convention. This thing was
a compact ten by seven point five foot cylinder or
three by two meters, and it had a refrigerator, freezer disposal,
and water system made to last the food and drink
(17:32):
needs for fourteen day mission. They fulfilled over three hundred
contracts with their space kitchen from nineteen fifty seven to
nineteen seventy three. Okay, yeah. In nineteen sixty three, a
scientist named Sydney A. Schwartz came up with an idea
of making space capsules either entirely or partly out of
(17:54):
edible materials. Okay, Willy Wonka scene, all right, yep, it
was a spacecraft made out of food. A Newsweek article
out of that year purports that he came up with
a recipe of five dollars worth of groceries like cornstarch, flour,
banana flakes, hominy, powdered milk that could be baked up
(18:15):
in a four degree hydraulic press with three thousand pounds
of pressure, and the result was a slab that didn't
splinter when drilled into or solid and for space travel.
Shorts suggested it as a cheap material for things like cabinets,
and yes, you could eat it. You um, you just
added water after you've ground up the slab in the powder.
(18:38):
Shwortz claimed it tasted like banana topped cereal. Interesting idea.
I like the creativity. That's great. Yeah, Well, moving on
from edible spacecraft, that's the ultimate space food. For the
mid sixties Jim and I Apollo and Mercury missions, astronauts
(19:01):
were given dehydrated and freeze dried cubes along with the tubes.
These bite sized cubes were meant to provide an eating
experience closer to Earth's and they came coated in in
edible film that kept crumbs, those troublesome crumbs from floating
about and mucking things up. And they came with nozzles
at the edge of the pouch and instructions on how
much water you needed to rehydrate. In nineteen sixty four
(19:27):
Los Angeles Times articled detailed some of the complications and
necessities for designing food for space. No carbonation because at
low pressure and high altitudes gas expands into your belly.
The whole crumb issue getting the right balance of nutrients.
The general girl at the time was sevent protein, carbon, hydrates,
(19:48):
and fat, and of the moisture was removed to reduce
weight and prevent sooiliage. There was also transport and space
constraints along with the balancing of the psychological need to eat,
as the article described it, that's one of the reasons
the idea of food and pill form was rejected and
(20:09):
the food didn't taste great. The first astronaut to try
the freeze dried stuff, Gordon Cooper, only eight six of
his two thousand, three sixty nine calories for a thirty
four hour mission. Who and all the astronauts of the
nineteen sixty three Mercury mission returned with uneaten food. The
(20:30):
Soviets developed a wider menu a little bit more quickly
than Americans, although they stuck largely with the tube delivery
system UM. They expanded to thirty options thirty of tubes
in those early years, and and also offered um some other,
some other actual kind of solid food, rolls that could
be eaten in a single bite, pieces of salami, and
drinks like berry juice and beet juice. By the time
(20:55):
the nineteen six five Gemini mission rolled around, they were
given more variety the American anyway. From that same Los
Angeles Times article, the two thousand calorie four meal a
day sample menu might look something like this meal a
sugar frosted flakes, sausage patties, toast squares and orange grapefruit juice, meal, bee, tuna, salad, cheese, sandwiches,
(21:18):
apricot pudding and grape juice. You'll see beef, pot rose,
carrots and cream, sauce, toasted bread cubes, pineapple cubes and
tea and meal d potato, soup, chicken bits, squares, apple sauce, brownies,
and grape fruit juice grapefruit juice near twice popular. The
(21:41):
astronauts injected the pouches with water from the water gun
and needed it to the proper consistency, cut open the
pouch to get to a plastic tube for squeezing out
the food, and then once finished, sealed it again with
a tablet inside that prevented rotting. You really didn't want that.
Each meal came with two sticks of gum and a
towel soaked with an antibacterial substance. Yes, these packages could
(22:05):
last two years at least. And then John W. Young
snuck a corned beef sandwich aboard the GYMNI three in
n first sandwich in space yep, and it necessitated a
mandatory astronaut inventory before each mission. Mannessa was so displeased
(22:26):
about it. They were really were They were not entertained. Nope.
The apollomissions um, the first one to line on the Moon,
saw even greater leaps in terms of taste of space food.
The new space amenity hot water made rehydrating foods easier
and faster, and then improved the flavor. Sure, hot hot
(22:49):
foods are hot sometimes, yeah, which is awesome. Another innovation
was the spoon bowl, which is what it sounds like.
The food stuck to the spoon thanks to the moisture
left over from rehydration. That's cool. Wet packs aluminium or
plastic pouches that kept food moist and didn't require rehydration
were introduced as well, and then a follow seven. This
(23:13):
is the mission with perhaps one of the most famous
space foods astronaut ice cream, freeze dried ice cream. Yes, yes,
it was a crew request of the Night mission, but
freeze dried ice cream only made one trip to space.
Why m hmm, because most of the crew didn't like it.
The texture was all around, the taste kind of flaw.
(23:34):
They said it was like styrofoam. I mean it was.
It wasn't like ice cream at all. But it's great.
As a kid, I loved this stuff so much. I
haven't had it in like decades, but I'm not sure
i've ever had it. Is diffing dots? Is that what
that is? No? Okay, well then that's what I've had.
(23:55):
I haven't had the I've seen it. It's like a
block of Neapolitan ice cream. Okay, we'll have to get some. Okay,
I'm down. The crew of Apollo eight enjoyed thermos stabilized
turkey and gravy, cranberry sauce and fruitcake on Christmas Eve
nineteen sixty eight as they orbited around the Moon. What
a great great view while you have your turkey, thermos
(24:16):
stabilized turkey, all the comforts of home. I know. The
beloved bacon square was the first food item consumed on
the Moon in nineteen sixty nine, and moon diets had
to be high in potassium to prevent any irregularities and
heart rhythm. I don't know if the bacon cue helped
with that, but perhaps it did. The first Russian cosmonauts
(24:40):
had food options, harkening back to the first American missions, mostly,
like Lawrence said, out of tubes. Mr dried on later missions.
In nineteen one, a Russian cosmonauts celebrated the birthday of
Victor Pots with tubes of prune paste and a smuggled
lemon and onion. What a birthday more smuggling, I know.
(25:03):
Apollo eleven introduced a contingency feeding system of liquids eaten
through an opening in the helmet should the cabin become depressurized. Yeah,
a canteen that granted astronauts um of drinking water. I wrote,
granted of drinking water while working on the Moon was
added to the space suits for a follow thirteen and
(25:25):
Apollo fifteen moonwalkers were given africat bars to tide them
over a while on the lunar surface. This was also
the first mission that had no leftovers props to them.
Before Apollo, the average weight loss per astronaut was three
to four pounds, sometimes up to ten pounds, although that
doesn't just have to do with with a lack of
food intake. Of course, the muscle wasting. They hadn't quite
(25:49):
figured out how to how to combat that or even
what was going on at that point yet. Um As
of nineteen nine, though, NASA's space food still left a
little bit of something to be desired. After living on
Apollo programmed food for three days, NASA Spacecraft project manager
Don Arabian reported that he had quote lost the will
(26:09):
to live and that the sausage patties tasted like granulated rubber.
That doesn't sound like something I would enjoy either, But
more innovations were coming. Yes. The next big thing in
space food occurred with the nineteen seventy three Skylab mission,
which came with a designated dining area, so astronauts could
(26:31):
sit down thanks to foot straps, at a table and eat,
and with the help of solar powered cells, Skylab was
the first to have a freezer and refrigeration. This meant
more choice for the astronauts seventy two more choices. In fact,
warming trays debut on this mission. To These trays could
be attached via vel grow to the astronauts lab or
(26:52):
to the wall, and they allowed for eating several things
at once without the tray, and opened pouch had to
be finished off before you could open an other one.
Astronauts could even design their own menu as long as
it met the requirements of a dietitian, and liquid salt
and pepper were introduced on this mission. The standard menu
cycled every seven days, and setting up a meal at
(27:14):
this time took thirty minutes. Sky Lab also had a
pantry with an extra two thousand, one hundred calories for
two days for each person in the case of bad
weather or another event that unexpectedly extended the mission. There's
also a backup with enough food to last the crew
for three weeks, called the safe Haven system. During the
(27:36):
American Soviet mission of nineteen seventy five astronauts eight things
like jellied beef, tongue, borshed and caviare. And then in Nive,
a Mexican payload specialist by the name of Faldo nari
Vela introduced a serious innovation to his fellow NASA Space
Shuttle astronauts, the flower tortilla. What after he requested them
(28:00):
for his mission and they were a hit with the
other astronauts. NASA set to developing a more long lasting
version of the tortilla, you know, so things could be
shelf stable for a few months. Um. They wound up
using tortillas from a manufacturer that sells to Taco Bell,
which had come out with a twelve month shelf stable
product in the nineteen nineties. Um, though they say that
they do use fresh tortillas for short missions. Astronauts Sandra
(28:25):
Magnus wrote in two thousand eight, I cannot think of
anything that cannot be put on a tortilla or has
not been put on a tortilla. You really want to
be swimming in tortillas for your whole increment? Wow, passionate
feelings about tortillas in space I understand as the duration
of missions lengthened. New packaging was developed, a trash compactor
(28:47):
was developed. Yeah in the galley was redesigned, and the
electronics updated. Both the weight and volume were reduced. Coca
Cola experimented with ways to get the perfect carbonated beverage
in space, despite that whole weird gas expansion thing um
on space Shuttle missions in the eighties and nineties, sending
space cans and a soda fountain. They haven't quite got
(29:10):
it right yet, though. The carbon dioxide bubbles and stuff
like SODA's mixed randomly with the surrounding liquid when it's
in space, meaning that they're usually more like foam than
they are drink And unfortunately, even if you can get
it right and you know, like drink it, carbonation really
isn't cool in near zero gravity. Um On on Earth,
(29:32):
gravity draws the liquid in a coke or you know,
like a beer or whatever, to the bottom of your stomach,
while the carbon dioxide gases will rise to the top
and come out in burps. In in low gravity, though,
the liquid in the air mix and your burps come
out wet, oh or the gases pass into your digestive system,
(29:54):
which might cause adverse effects. Neither of which I'm not
even sure which one I want less, I'll take neither. Yes,
thank you neither for the wind. Nowadays, the category of
space food has expanded so much. From period paste squeezed
from tubes. For each six months spent on I S S,
(30:14):
crew members get to choose in nine preference containers. I
like the sound of that, from a main menu of
over two items. Those items run the gambit from Japanese takeout,
Swedish meatballs, tortillas, space kimchi, and the ever popular shrimp cocktail.
NASA has sixty thermo stabilized foods and fifty freeze dried
(30:35):
products under their belt, and famous chefs like Emerald Lagassi
have helped create some space food recipes. On Holiday's crew
has allowed special request and they get special treat packages
and by friends or families called psychological support kits. Charles
Simionium paid sixty million for two visits to the I
(30:57):
S S and two thousand six two thousand seven. He's
a rich software guy fy I, and he brought with
him m duck breast quail and Similina cake prepared by
Elaine Ducas. That's probably the fanciest meal consumed in space
to date, and an unmanned resupply rocket carrying six pounds
(31:18):
of equipment in one thousand, three hundred sixty pounds of
food exploded in October. Yeah, that kind of hurt my
heart when I read it. Yeah, in the first Italian
woman to go to space, as Samantha Christopher Ready drank
the first legit space espresso on the I S s um.
The machine was a joint experiment by the Italian Space Agency,
(31:42):
engineering firm Agritech Yes and UH coffee company Lavasa. The
project took two years to complete. Of course, it can
also make hot tea and consumm a um. But but
even though the system is way different than earth bound machines,
you can even get a waft of coffee scent from
your cup or the pouch. The pouches designed to emit
(32:03):
odor when you insert your straw. That sounds gross, but
I bet it's lovely. It's just a weird way to
think about it. The pouch omits odor. And with that
we do have some more for you, including booze in space.
Has it been there? Of course it has. But first
we're going to take another quick break for a word
(32:24):
from our sponsor and we're back, Thank you sponsor. Okay,
So booze in space. Obviously, you don't want a bunch
of astronauts floating around drunk while they're supposed to be,
(32:44):
you know, sciencing and like staying alive. But of course
there's been booze in space of course. UM. Russian cosmonauts
had cognac and their rations during the early days of
the space age. UM One reported that their doctors had
recommended it. Uh quote we we used. We used it
to stimulate our immune system and on the whole to
(33:06):
keep our organisms in tone, in tone. The first liquid
poured and perhaps consumed on the Moon was actually wine.
Buzz Aldren, who was an elder at his Presbyterian church,
arranged to take communion on the Sunday that he and
Neil Armstrong landed on the Moon. Before they left the
lunar module, he took the wine and bread and radioed
(33:29):
a message back to Earth. It wound up not being
broadcast due to some pr trouble that NASA was having
regarding separation of church and state. Um. But what he
said was, I would like to request a few moments
of silence and to invite each person listening in wherever
and whomever they may be, to pause for a moment
and contemplate the events of the past few hours, and
(33:49):
to give thanks in his or her own way, which
I think is lovely. Yeah. Um. In the early seventies,
with the sky Lab overhaul of the NASA menu, food
researchers tried their darndest to include wine with their menu offerings,
a four ounce ration every four days. They settled on
sherry because, as it's already been heated during production, they
(34:12):
figured it would be the least damaged by the space
packaging process. But the plan went seriously sideways. Uh. First
of all, when public. When the public got wind of
the idea, um, some some people got really upset. They
didn't like the concept of astronauts, these these you know,
these all American heroes that are children are watching. They
(34:33):
didn't like the thought of them drinking. Secondly, when NASA
tested the sherry on a low gravity plane, um, let
me let me quote Charles Borland, a space food engineer,
The odors were leased by the wine, combined with the
residual smell of years worth of people getting sick on
the plane, had an unplanned effect on the crew. Many
(34:56):
grabbed for their bath bags. The sherry was not sent
to space. NASA would later outlaw any drinking in space
from its astronauts, and the official I S S statement
on booze in space is that because alcohol is a
volatile compound, astronauts drinking could muss up their water recycling program,
(35:20):
but that does not preclude alcohol from being used experimentally.
One microbiology project out of the University of Colorado, through
NASA's Space Product Development, brewed a wee batch of beer
in space. Huh. It's east cell count was kind of low,
and there was more of one of the yeast's proteins
than usual. The researchers aren't sure why that's interesting. More
(35:43):
they think it might be like a stress response protein.
The east were like, I know, right, or feeling something
for use this interesting. Whiskey maker Art Beg sent a
few vials of Scotch whiskey distillate plus oak shaving oak
cask shavings up to the I S S to see
(36:03):
how microgravity would affect the flavors pulled from barrels during aging.
And yes, the shavings part is unusual. Don't worry. They
also kept a few vials on Earth as a control.
Near zero gravity seemed to inhibit the extraction of some
compounds from the wood, leading to an unusual balance of
flavor compounds overall in the whiskey. Um. When they tested
(36:27):
both samples back on Earth, yes, they drank the space whiskey.
The Earth sample smelled and tasted like art beg um.
The space sample was basically totally different. And Okay, I'm
gonna quote the kind of extensive tasting notes from both
samples because it's just super fascinating to me. Okay, So,
Earth sample aroma very woody, hints of cedar, sweet smoke
(36:50):
and aged balsamic vinegar, hints of raisins, chuckle, toffee of
vanilla and burnt oranges. Taste dry palette, woody balsamic flavor,
sweet smoke and clove oil, a distant fruitiness, prunes, dates, uh,
some charcoal and antiseptic notes. The aftertaste is long, lingering
and typically ard beg, with flavors of gentle smoke, briarwood, tar,
(37:13):
and some sweet creamy fudge. Sounds lovely um from the
I s s sample aroma intense and rounded with notes
of antiseptic smoke, rubber, smoked fish, and a curious, perfumed
note like a cassius or violet, powerful woody notes, hints
of graphite and some vanilla. This then leads into very
(37:36):
earthy soil notes, a savory beefy aroma, and then hints
of rum and raisin flavored ice cream taste a very
focused flavor profile with smoked fruits, prunes, raisins, sugar plums
and cherries, earthy pete, smoke, peppermint, aniseed cinnamon, and smoked
bacon or hickory smoked ham. The aftertaste is pungent, intense,
(37:57):
and long, with hints of wood, antiseptic lozenges and rubbery smoke.
Robbery smoke. I mean, that's a lot of word salad,
but like, but they were just distinctly different, and I
think that's great. Yeah, space whiskey science. That's some fascinating
science right there. Yeah, more research is clearly necessary and
(38:22):
uh one one study with with rats from suggested that
a compound founded red wines um reservera troll could help
astronauts stave off the muscle waste that happens without rigorous
exercise in low gravity and environments. UM so maybe in
the future with longer space missions, bringing along a little
bit of wine wouldn't be considered it superfluous. Let us
(38:45):
all forget about supplements. Yeah, yeah, forget about those things.
But hey, speaking of the future, let's talk about the future. Yes.
So now that NASA and other space traveling intoity are
planning missions with even longer durations, like um, I don't know,
mission to Mars. One of the main goals is to
(39:07):
take the current eighteen months shelf life of foods and
extend it to five years. Yeah. One option that NASA
is looking at would have crew members building a hydroponic
growth lab and growing fresh produce inside. This would be
a solution for menu fatigue, which on a year plus
long mission becomes a real concern. Cooking in space, however,
(39:29):
really difficult, if not impossible, thanks to that whole gravity thing,
along with the host of energy and space considerations like
like area space not space. Yeah, I didn't even think
about that. The journey to Mars would take about two
and a half years, by the way, and require somewhere
around twelve tons of food. Yes, people eat man, that's crazy, okay, Yeah,
(39:53):
potentially sent to Mars separately before the human crew takes off.
UM A form experiment conducted examined that the implications and
limitations of astronauts cooking their own food. The stipulations were
among the six crew members. Food could only be cooked
on certain days, only shelf stable products like honey our
(40:15):
rice could be used, and only a limited amount of
energy expanded on things like a hot plate. All the
participants preferred days when they cook something because they said
it allowed for creativity and social bonding. A few projects
have been looking into three D printing as a potential
solution to cooking in space. That the basic idea is
that you could use good old tubes of food stuff
(40:37):
as ingredients and that that the printer could make those
into different dishes. We'll have to do a whole episode
about about three D food printing sometime. Yes, it's pretty great.
I'm so on board with red romaine. Lettuce became the
first crop grown and eaten space. Three crew members toasted
their lettuce after dipping the pieces in olive oil. I know,
(40:59):
and they were quite satisfied with the taste. I do
remember when this happened being in the news. Longer missions
also expand on the nutrient deficiency problem, like shrinking bones
and squashed eyeballs. I didn't look into that, but I
saw it and it scared me. Oh yeah, my microgravity
does things to your eyeballs that I don't want squashed eyeballs.
(41:22):
I don't want like astronauts getting that that. This sounds terrible. No, no, no,
no one, No one deserves a squashed eyeball. Um, there's
if there's anything we've learned from Game of Thrones. Uh.
By the way, UM, if you are interested in the
kind of history part of all of this, there's a
really terrific textbook called The Astronauts Cookbook that was co
written by um, by that guy I quoted earlier about
(41:44):
the about the Sherry Um who worked in NASA's space
food program for thirty years. So he has a lot
of stories in there. Look it up, check it out.
And other than that, that wraps up our episode on
space food. Yeah, that was a crash course and that
concludes this classic episode where many space puns were made,
(42:09):
sound effects were had. Welcome back Food, Astronauts to the
here and now. We hope you had an excellent journey
on spaceship saver spaceships, what a weird spaceship it would be,
but fun. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Um.
(42:37):
If you would like to contact us, as always, we
would love to hear from you. Our email is hello
at saver pod dot com. We're also on social media.
You can find us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at
saver pod and we do hope to hear from you.
Savor is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
my Heart Radio, you can visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
(42:58):
Thanks as always to our superproduce hers Dylan Fagan and
Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening, and we have
that lots more good things are coming your way. H
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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