DailyDirt: Eating Food On Other Astronomical Objects
from the urls-we-dig-up dept
Manned missions outside of low Earth orbit take a bit more planning since supplies are a trickier to deliver the farther out astronauts go. NASA is looking at a trip to Mars in a couple decades, and part of its preparations is creating edible items that are safe and nutritious for such a long trip. Here are just a few interesting stories about eating in other gravitational environments.- The menu for astronauts headed to Mars could include items like (vegan) pizza and fresh vegetables/fruits. The gravity on Mars should allow astronauts to chop vegetables and do some food prep that's a bit harder in a zero-gravity environment. [url]
- Buzz Aldrin took a communion wafer and a vial of wine to the moon in 1969. Aldrin quietly read a few bible passages and consumed these items in the hours before he was scheduled to go for a walk on the moon's surface. [url]
- A trip to Mars requires the shelf life of its food supplies to last about five years, but NASA's current astronaut menu only lasts a couple years. Lockheed Martin researchers are looking into a bunch of different (non-meat and non-dairy) menu options for a 2030-ish planned mission to the red planet. [url]
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Filed Under: astronauts, buzz aldrin, food, mars, moon, space
Companies: lockheed martin, nasa
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Clark Griswald
*watches National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation* :-)
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Long Lived Food
A "Little" more seriously: I remember working in a local university library about 30 years ago. There was a 50s era bomb shelter in there filled with "food". I and a number of other students used to take our breaks in there and over the years we sampled (OK, polished off) just about everything. That food was OVER 20 years old and still edible, albeit not the most tasty.
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Re: Long Lived Food
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Food
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