Eating in Space

Roland Piquepaille writes "What do you think astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) ate for Thanksgiving? Roasted turkey? Wrong answer. In "Orbital Thanksgiving," NASA tells us they had tortillas and gives details about food in space. If the dining view, 200 miles over the Earth, is great, preparing meals is quite a challenge. For example, there is no refrigerator or freezer aboard the Station, so food must remain good for long periods at room temperature. And you need to avoid crumbs which could float around. This is why tortillas are favored over bread. This overview contains additional references and includes a picture of a cosmonaut preparing food in the ISS galley."

Comments

Why no herb garden?

[G4from128k]

I'm surprised that none of the astronauts has snuck a small herb garden on board. Some fresh basil, chives, or parsley would surely enliven the food. You could probably grow these plants in a dirt-free medium by stuffing damp cloth fragments into a sock and keeping it damp. You could then velcro the planter near a window and let it grow.

The plants might grow strangely in zero-G, but I'm sure the leaves would still taste OK.

Refrigeration

[DeepDarkSky]

The lack of refrigeration does seem kind of odd, given that we always hear that space is "cold"

However, thinking about it some more, I guess it's because of the relative vacuum of space that makes it more like a gigantic insulator - if you have heat on the ISS, it'd be difficult to dissipate it because there is no medium to carry the heat away. At least, I think that's what might be the case.

COld?

[mindstrm]

Space is not cold. Space is not warm. Space is a vacuum.

Space is a great insulator.

Thankswhat?

[Seehund]

What do you think astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) ate for Thanksgiving?

Uh... That question hasn't really kept me sleepless. Considering that you're talking about the International Space Station...

Well, now that the Spanish astronaut has left the station, Americans count for a whopping 50% of the astronauts aboard the station.

I.e. one guy.

Thanksgiving?

Fluid heat exchange circuits will kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to be up there when either the water or the ammonia cooling circuits break. It's designed to kill people, either directly or through loss of environment control.

Using fluid heat exchange in space implies either blind trust in technology or, less generously, that it is acceptable to increase the risk to your astronauts even beyond the risk inherent to being in space.

It's simply nuts.

Re:Fluid heat exchange circuits will kill people

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, hrm. Lessee.

There's been spacecraft using fluids to exchange heat for a damn long time. I've yet to hear of a single astronaut or cosmonaut whom have died because of a coolant malfunction.

Blind trust? Fuck no. It's called engineering. It's called triple or quadruple redundancy. It's called knowing that you built a system that's capable of handling the tasks at hand, and knowing that it's going to accel at doing it's job.

Blind trust is when you send someone up, and pray to god that he survives because you know that you built a piece of shit.

Blind trust is building a bridge with no knowlege on how to go about building one, then driving a truck over it to see if it crumbles.

Blind trust is knowing nothing about building a boat, then puting it in the water expecting that it's not going to sink outright, or not develop a leak.

Blind trust is jumping off a clif with pieces of wood strapped to your arms, expecting that you're going to fly with the birds. Engineering is doing the research that's relevent to the project at hand, and applying that knowledge to a physical object. Engineering is making a wind tunnel, and testing out aerofoils. Engineering is two bicycle repairmen constructing a machine that they know is going to work.

Lots of things are dangerous. Driving on the road is dangerous. Driving on the road in a well built machine with airbags, and well engineered crumple zones, and proper restraining devices is inherently safer than driving in a machine with none of the above, and a bucket for a seat.

There's a distinction there. I think you need to learn it. Indeed, it would be a good thing for everyone to learn.

Missed opportunity for spinning station

[Anonymous Coward]

The plants might grow strangely in zero-G

There was no need for zero-G if the thing had been designed properly. The fact that the ISS is not structured as two or three nested rings all spinning together for various levels of gravity just shows how primitive the whole thing is.

Re:Turkey?

[PhotoGuy]

What one usually calls "cold" is not something of low temperature, but something with a lower temperature and a good heat conductance. Hence, a piece of metal of room temperature is cold.

This is an excellent point, and is also the explanation of something I always wondered about when I was younger: why a swimming pool that's at 20'C (70'F-ish) seems noticably cooler than room temperature. Both room temperature and the water are much colder than our bodies, but water contacting your skin conducts away your heat much more effectively than the air.