DailyDirt: Space Food

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Fri, Jul 20th 2012 5:00pm — Michael Ho

Most people's idea of astronaut food is freeze-dried ice cream -- which astronauts don't actually eat anymore. But with all the commercial space ventures that are trying to create a space tourism industry, maybe there should be more culinary options for zero gravity meals. Here are just a few examples of space food that might be better than a packet of salted peanuts.

Making bread in space isn't too easy, especially if you want it to have the same consistency as normal Earth-bound bread. A teenager has proposed a bread recipe for astronauts that involves low pressure aeration of flour dough and low temperature cooking. [url]
NASA created specially-prepared food for Apollo astronauts in the 1960s. An example meal is on display at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, and it looks just as unappetizing as it did several decades ago. [url]
University of Colorado Boulder students are working on a robotic farming system for growing food for astronauts in space. This project is meant to support long-term missions such as a journey to Mars, and the automated system will attempt to seed plants, monitor plant growth, harvest and process crop residues. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: apollo, astronaut, bread, food, freeze-dried meals, mars, robotic farming, space

10 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2012 @ 6:05pm

1969.. what did they eat on the moon?
Did the moon landing astronauts eat anything while they were on the moon? Just curious.......
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 20 Jul 2012 @ 7:18pm

Re: 1969.. what did they eat on the moon?
Just cheese, which is what the moon is made of.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Atkray (profile), 20 Jul 2012 @ 7:29pm

What about space sticks ---> http://spacefoodsticks.com/pdf/skylab.pdf

and Tang?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Rekrul, 20 Jul 2012 @ 7:48pm

The first link is broken...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Wally (profile), 20 Jul 2012 @ 9:20pm

COSCI
Oh astronaught food :-) Closest thing people can get to that is Whoppers. When I was about 7 years old, my mom took a group my friends and I to COSCI (Central Ohio Science and Industry). It's an interactive science Meuseum. As a party favors my mom got us all Ice Cream Sandwiches. They were in dehydrated form as they would be packed on the space shuttle. Oh the memories :-)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Wally (profile), 20 Jul 2012 @ 9:26pm

Re: 1969.. what did they eat on the moon?
I think this may help answer your question.

http://www.eatmedaily.com/2009/07/food-of-the-apollo-11-lunar-landing/

It's sort of a paste that you sucked through a straw. They contained all the same nutritional value.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Wally (profile), 20 Jul 2012 @ 9:31pm

Re:
Tang: Also known As "Orange Drink"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Michael Ho (profile), 21 Jul 2012 @ 12:18am

Re:
Rekrul,

Hmm. The Google cache of that link still works for now:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:1DTXr0_YdKwJ:open.nasa.gov/blog/2012/05/2 1/space-bread/+&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

But it looks like there's a problem with nasa.gov's blog...
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Wally (profile), 21 Jul 2012 @ 12:29am

More Extensive History of Space Food
Therr are some pretty interesting stories involving aastronaughts and their food in the Mercury and Gemini era's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_food

Tang:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_(dri nk)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 21 Jul 2012 @ 6:10pm

�... IN SPACE!!!�
Fun game: take ordinary humdrum statements and make them more exciting by appending �... IN SPACE!!!�. E.g.

I�ll have a paua fritter and chips to go ... IN SPACE!!!

He still puts his pants on one leg at a time ... IN SPACE!!!

I�ve got this nasty rash on my bum ... IN SPACE!!!
[ link to this | view in thread ]