Avi Blizovsky
Astronaut Chris Hadfield tastes a chocolate cake that has had the liquids returned to it. Behind him, NASA food engineer Vicki Cloris waits for his response at the Johnson Space Center in Texas.
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NASA Food Laboratory Director Vicki Cloris and her team spend their days developing, testing and packing meals for astronauts. The goal is to increase the variety, the nutritional value and the taste. No more dry food cubes, especially during the holidays.
So when Michael Powell and astronaut Alexander Clary open their Thanksgiving food packages, they'll find the traditional turkey and all the ingredients there, even when they're floating 400 miles above Earth on the International Space Station.
Will the food taste like home? almost. "It's good, although it doesn't taste like a freshly baked turkey, but you can't do that in space," said Canadian astronaut Grice Hadfield after tasting samples of the new food.
"At first glance, the freeze-dried food, a process similar to canning - is not the tastiest food. The packaging - in transparent or gray bags looks sterile and the food cubes are reminiscent of brownies and the chocolate pudding is inside a tube that the astronauts ate all the food from in the Gemini programs in the sixties.
The popular shrimp
However, as soon as the dishes receive the water back at room temperature or hot (depending on the food), their taste improves.
Foods such as shrimp cocktail - the most requested dish by the astronauts - or green peas and mushrooms, or bean soup get a look and taste and texture similar to those served in restaurants. Moreover. Food stays good in packages for two to three years.
"We want food with a lot of flavor and different colors," says food engineer Donna Navros, showing the camera crew a large tray of fried rice with shrimp in the laboratory kitchen. The dish, prepared with water nuts, peas, carrots and a variety of spices, was placed in a device reminiscent of a clothes dryer for a freezing and drying process that lasted 5 days. It will then be vacuum sealed into an individual portion box.
Lieutenant Colonel Yang Li-wei, China's first representative sent into space ate bite-sized schnitzels of spicy pork, diced chicken and fried rice during his hijacked flight a month ago.
A wide variety of meals is very important to astronauts, Cloris said. Astronauts on the International Space Station have a ten-day food cycle. Their menu, chosen from a list of 250 food items is divided between American and Russian food.
"We don't want them to suffer from food fatigue," she said. "More variety in the menu is something we hear from every crew that has returned from the space station. It helps them psychologically."
Hadfield said that on long missions, such as a long stay aboard the space station for several months, food becomes an important part of the astronauts' daily routine. "You constantly look forward to meals and the delicious food served at them."
Space station crew members who receive three meals a day plus snacks heat their food in the silver suitcase-like heater. Each meal costs an average of one hundred dollars, mainly because of the need to pack and try. Chloris says that it can take six to eight months for a lab to develop and test a new food item.
In the last three years, the laboratory has developed 50 new items, but as in any kitchen, there are also culinary failures. Swordfish prepared with tomato sauce proved unpopular with many of the astronauts.
One of the complaints the astronauts had about the fish was the smell. "We thought maybe the tomato sauce would cover the smell," Cloris said. But the astronauts say that he only made the situation worse. saying. "We didn't give up fish, but we will try to find another formula. saying.
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