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NASA to develop packaged food with five-year shelf life for astronauts
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Thursday, 28 July, 2011, 08 : 00 AM [IST]
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Food scientists at NASA ((National Aeronautics and Space Administration) are faced with the difficulty of figuring out how to feed astronauts on long-term trips.
Michele Perchonok, the shuttle food system manager at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, said, “We need a five-year shelf-life of the packaged food system. It doesn’t exist yet, the end of the shuttle programme allows us to focus on developing new technology to sustain astronauts on future missions.”
Until now, food sent to space did not need such a long shelf-life because of the short duration of shuttle flights and constant re-supplying of the International Space Station.
While NASA still makes food for the space station, scientists are focussing on how to feed astronauts for years at a time. This challenge has led to some creative solutions.
One option being considered for missions to the moon, Perchonok said, is growing fruits and vegetables on the moon in hydroponic gardens.
Not only would astronauts get fresh fruits and vegetables, but the plants would also help convert carbon dioxide back into oxygen. Perchonok said scientists originally considered growing wheat or soybeans as well, but decided the plants were too difficult to grow. Instead, NASA plans to send staple foods with the astronauts.
Although missions to the moon and Mars aren’t planned until 2030 or later, Perchonok said her team’s goal is to figure out how to store food for five years by 2018.
“Right now, we don’t have enough food at a five-year shelf life to accommodate a crew on a long mission,” Perchonok said.
NASA selects the foods it sends into space based on several criteria, including nutrition, quality and acceptability to astronauts.
“We’re not going to send something up there if they’re not going to eat it,” Perchonok said.
In a presentation at the National Archives, Charles T Bourland, a retired NASA food scientist, talked about his work developing food for the Apollo, Skylab, Shuttle and International Space Station missions.
Bourland said one of challenges he faced was making sure astronauts ate all of the food they were given. Astronauts who didn’t eat their allotted food lost weight.
The only time astronauts have eaten all the food they were supplied, Bourland said, was on Skylab when they were required to keep a food diary.
Bourland remembered the time former astronaut and US senator John Glenn served then-President Bill Clinton a package of cold green beans that weren’t fully rehydrated when they toured JohnsonSpaceCenter in Houston.
“I thought for sure we’d get more money for space food after that,” Bourland joked.
Glenn was supposed to serve the president shrimp cocktail that had previously been rehydrated.
Even though the astronauts on the space station are hundreds of miles above the Earth, NASA tries to give them as much variety as possible. Bourland said typical meals might include lasagna, mashed potatoes, chocolate pudding cake, eggs, sausage and, of course, Tang.
“Almost anything you eat, they eat,” Bourland said.
Pizza however, is one food that can’t make it to space. Bourland said it doesn’t dehydrate well due to the number of different ingredients.
Source: KC Infozine
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