1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,000 Let's rejoin Tonya and Connie back in the Food Systems Laboratory at NASA Johnson Space Center. 2 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:12,000 All of the food packages have a label on them and it identifies the food 3 00:00:12,000 --> 00:00:14,000 and it has some rehydration and heating information. 4 00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:19,000 This is vegetable quiche and it actually says to add 50 milliliters of hot water 5 00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:21,000 and to heat for 5 to 10 minutes. 6 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:24,000 So there are guidelines, they don't have to guess. 7 00:00:24,000 --> 00:00:27,000 This amount is so that the food properly hydrates 8 00:00:27,000 --> 00:00:31,000 and then this time is so that it has the time to properly hydrate 9 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:34,000 and then it's at its optimum for consuming. 10 00:00:34,000 --> 00:00:38,000 The fuel cells used on the shuttle not only provide energy to run vehicle systems, 11 00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:41,000 but also produce water as a byproduct. 12 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:46,000 Rather than dispose of this water, astronauts use it to help rehydrate their food. 13 00:00:46,000 --> 00:00:50,000 This system works so well that about half of the food and beverages 14 00:00:50,000 --> 00:00:54,000 now consumed aboard the shuttle are in the freeze-dried form. 15 00:00:54,000 --> 00:00:58,000 To help food move from the freeze-dried form to an edible meal, 16 00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:02,000 a piece of equipment called a rehydrator is used. 17 00:01:02,000 --> 00:01:05,000 The rehydrator measures the correct amount of water needed 18 00:01:05,000 --> 00:01:08,000 to be added to each food or drink package 19 00:01:08,000 --> 00:01:12,000 and allows the crew member to choose either hot or chilled water. 20 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:17,000 Once the water is added to the food, it can be eaten in a matter of a few minutes. 21 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:19,000 Although this might not sound very appealing, 22 00:01:19,000 --> 00:01:23,000 most crews give high marks for the food that's prepared for their missions. 23 00:01:23,000 --> 00:01:26,000 Why are some of these items packaged differently than others? 24 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:31,000 The different types of food items determine what type of package the food is packaged in. 25 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:37,000 All of our freeze-dried rehydratables are in this, what we call, an EDO package. 26 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:42,000 It's this clear package that has a septum so that the food can be rehydrated. 27 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:45,000 The other types of foods that are in clear packages are what we call our bite-sized 28 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:50,000 or just natural form foods, granola bars, cookies, candies, nuts. 29 00:01:50,000 --> 00:01:52,000 They're all in these clear types of packages. 30 00:01:52,000 --> 00:01:55,000 That was developed for the food system. 31 00:01:55,000 --> 00:02:01,000 However, these types of food packages are not 100% oxygen and moisture impermeable. 32 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:04,000 They're actually overwrapped in these types of foil packages. 33 00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:06,000 We also provide condiments. 34 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:09,000 Peanut butter is actually one of the condiments that we provide. 35 00:02:09,000 --> 00:02:10,000 Very popular. 36 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:15,000 We also have mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup, Tabasco sauce, relish, you name it. 37 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:19,000 If we don't have it as a standard condiment, we'll get it for a crew member if they request it, 38 00:02:19,000 --> 00:02:21,000 specifically if they're on the space station and they request it. 39 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:23,000 We want to keep them very happy. 40 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:28,000 We also have salt and pepper, not your regular salt and pepper, though, 41 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:32,000 because if you had a regular salt and pepper shaker, it would go everywhere with the food, 42 00:02:32,000 --> 00:02:34,000 and that would create a huge mess. 43 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:38,000 So we have liquid salt and pepper, and this is a saline solution, just salt and water. 44 00:02:38,000 --> 00:02:41,000 And then this is pepper. 45 00:02:41,000 --> 00:02:44,000 It's a pepper extract in vegetable oil. 46 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:48,000 We are in Houston, so tortillas are a specialty, I assume. 47 00:02:48,000 --> 00:02:50,000 Tortillas are very special. 48 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:53,000 They might be one of the most popular food items that we have on the menu. 49 00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:58,000 They not only serve as a food item, they actually work as a tool also. 50 00:02:58,000 --> 00:03:00,000 They have replaced bread, 51 00:03:00,000 --> 00:03:04,000 and the astronauts use tortillas to make every combination that you could dream of. 52 00:03:04,000 --> 00:03:06,000 So is all the food made here at Johnson? 53 00:03:06,000 --> 00:03:10,000 Not all of the food is made here at the Johnson Space Center. 54 00:03:10,000 --> 00:03:16,000 There are some food items that are what we call cots, commercially off-the-shelf items, 55 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:20,000 things like candy-coated chocolates or a granola bar or crackers 56 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:24,000 that we will actually buy from a food service distributor or from the grocery store, 57 00:03:24,000 --> 00:03:26,000 and then they're repackaged. 58 00:03:26,000 --> 00:03:30,000 Those are food items that don't need to be developed specifically for spaceflight. 59 00:03:30,000 --> 00:03:33,000 We don't want to reinvent the wheel, so to speak. 60 00:03:33,000 --> 00:03:38,000 Do you put any special markings or anything on the packages so everybody knows whose food is whose? 61 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:41,000 All of the food items are actually color-coded. 62 00:03:41,000 --> 00:03:44,000 Each astronaut has a color that belongs to them. 63 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:48,000 Right now, the station astronauts have red, yellow, and green dots, 64 00:03:48,000 --> 00:03:51,000 and so all they have to do is look on their food package, 65 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:53,000 and in this corner of the label is a color dot. 66 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:56,000 So if you're red, you can look for your red food. 67 00:03:56,000 --> 00:03:58,000 Now, if it's regular menu food, 68 00:03:58,000 --> 00:04:02,000 you might not be so hurt if someone happens to eat your red carrot coins, 69 00:04:02,000 --> 00:04:07,000 but if it's bonus food that you've specifically picked out for yourself, 70 00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:11,000 you're not going to be so happy when someone eats something that has a red dot on it 71 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:13,000 or came out of a box that had your name on it. 72 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:17,000 Okay, some astronauts say that food actually tastes different once they get up there 73 00:04:17,000 --> 00:04:19,000 than what they've had down here when they were eating it. 74 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:21,000 How do you compensate for that? 75 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:22,000 That is true. 76 00:04:22,000 --> 00:04:26,000 Some astronauts do note that food tastes different in orbit 77 00:04:26,000 --> 00:04:29,000 as opposed to what it tastes like here on the ground. 78 00:04:29,000 --> 00:04:32,000 One of the reasons that that could happen is there is a fluid shift 79 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:34,000 when astronauts are in microgravity, 80 00:04:34,000 --> 00:04:36,000 and so because of that fluid shift, 81 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:40,000 it might actually lessen their taste and smell perception. 82 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:43,000 Also, most of what, when you're eating, 83 00:04:43,000 --> 00:04:47,000 most of what you're tasting comes from actually from what you're smelling. 84 00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:51,000 So if there is that fluid shift, you might not be smelling as much, 85 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:56,000 therefore not tasting things that may not appear to be as flavorful. 86 00:04:56,000 --> 00:04:59,000 But we do actually take some measures to compensate for that. 87 00:04:59,000 --> 00:05:01,000 We offer Tabasco sauce. 88 00:05:01,000 --> 00:05:07,000 We offer picani sauce and hot sauce, things to jazz it up, spice things up a little bit. 89 00:05:07,000 --> 00:05:11,000 Some astronauts' tastes change from Earth to when they are in orbit. 90 00:05:11,000 --> 00:05:14,000 Someone says that they can't live without orange juice for breakfast. 91 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:17,000 Then when they get into space, they can't stand orange juice. 92 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:19,000 There's not necessarily an explanation for it. 93 00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:21,000 It just sometimes happens. 94 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:24,000 Or some astronauts don't particularly like something on the ground. 95 00:05:24,000 --> 00:05:26,000 When they're up there, they can't get enough of it. 96 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:28,000 When an astronaut's getting ready to go into orbit, 97 00:05:28,000 --> 00:05:30,000 how do they decide what they're going to eat? 98 00:05:30,000 --> 00:05:32,000 How do they pick the food and create a menu for themselves? 99 00:05:32,000 --> 00:05:34,000 The astronauts come to our lab, 100 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:36,000 and they actually go through a process called approbation 101 00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:39,000 where they consume the menu the way it has been planned for them. 102 00:05:39,000 --> 00:05:42,000 So they will come to our lab, and they will eat breakfast. 103 00:05:42,000 --> 00:05:45,000 They'll eat the entire breakfast that's planned for them. 104 00:05:45,000 --> 00:05:50,000 Then they'll eat lunch, and that gives them the opportunity to eat the food as they would in space 105 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:52,000 and see how much they like it. 106 00:05:52,000 --> 00:05:55,000 Because when they're in our lab going through a food evaluation session, 107 00:05:55,000 --> 00:05:57,000 they're only eating one or two bites of each food item, 108 00:05:57,000 --> 00:06:02,000 and that's not a good indicator or a very good indicator of how well they like a food. 109 00:06:02,000 --> 00:06:04,000 When they come in and they sit down and they eat breakfast, 110 00:06:04,000 --> 00:06:08,000 and they eat an entire serving of scrambled eggs or an entire serving of waffles, 111 00:06:08,000 --> 00:06:10,000 then they can say, yeah, I like it that much. 112 00:06:10,000 --> 00:06:12,000 I definitely want that on my menu, or no way. 113 00:06:12,000 --> 00:06:14,000 Just a bite or two is enough. I'm not eating that. 114 00:06:14,000 --> 00:06:16,000 Or they might decide that they like something so much 115 00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:19,000 that they want it to repeat more than once on their menu. 116 00:06:19,000 --> 00:06:22,000 So that gives them the opportunity to taste everything again, 117 00:06:22,000 --> 00:06:25,000 give feedback before their menu is finalized, 118 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:29,000 because it is very important that the astronauts eat exactly what they want, 119 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:31,000 and they're never given something that they don't like. 120 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:36,000 On early missions, shuttle crews were all given the exact same meal to eat. 121 00:06:36,000 --> 00:06:38,000 Although always nutritious, 122 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:41,000 astronauts would sometimes be stuck with a food they didn't like. 123 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:45,000 NASA scientists soon realized personalized meals made more sense. 124 00:06:45,000 --> 00:06:47,000 So after the seventh shuttle mission, 125 00:06:47,000 --> 00:06:51,000 NASA began allowing each astronaut to choose their own menu. 126 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:54,000 Currently, International Space Station astronauts 127 00:06:54,000 --> 00:06:58,000 can choose from hundreds of different food items to make up their personal menu. 128 00:06:58,000 --> 00:07:00,000 When an astronaut's menu's been chosen, 129 00:07:00,000 --> 00:07:05,000 it's analyzed by a dietician to make sure it's nutritionally appropriate. 130 00:07:05,000 --> 00:07:10,000 Once the menu's approved, the meals are packaged and placed in containers for spaceflight. 131 00:07:10,000 --> 00:07:14,000 This is a food container that they use on the International Space Station. 132 00:07:14,000 --> 00:07:17,000 This is what all of their food items are stowed in. 133 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:23,000 It's labeled on three sides with labels. 134 00:07:23,000 --> 00:07:26,000 All of the American food that is on the space station has a blue label, 135 00:07:26,000 --> 00:07:29,000 and all of the Russian food containers have red labels. 136 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:32,000 And each label has a lot of information on it. 137 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:34,000 It describes what kind of food container it is. 138 00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:36,000 We've broken foods down into different categories. 139 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:38,000 This actually is a meat and entrees container. 140 00:07:38,000 --> 00:07:42,000 It has a container number, so for inventory tracking purposes, we have that. 141 00:07:42,000 --> 00:07:44,000 Barcode also serves for that purpose. 142 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:50,000 A big number nine that shows what ISS expedition crew gets this container, 143 00:07:50,000 --> 00:07:53,000 so when they're unloading and moving around containers 144 00:07:53,000 --> 00:07:56,000 because space is at a premium on the space station, 145 00:07:56,000 --> 00:08:00,000 it's a lot easier to identify your mission's increment number. 146 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:05,000 And, of course, bilingual labels, so we have things in Cyrillic. 147 00:08:05,000 --> 00:08:09,000 Food items are stowed in these containers very efficiently. 148 00:08:09,000 --> 00:08:11,000 Every bit of the space is utilized. 149 00:08:11,000 --> 00:08:15,000 And what's unique about these containers is they're actually collapsible. 150 00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:21,000 These pins remove from these containers, and these walls collapse, 151 00:08:21,000 --> 00:08:25,000 so it encourages the crew members to break these containers down. 152 00:08:25,000 --> 00:08:28,000 They're actually recyclable containers. 153 00:08:28,000 --> 00:08:31,000 Each one of these food containers actually holds enough food 154 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:33,000 for three crew members for one day. 155 00:08:33,000 --> 00:08:38,000 So that gives you an idea of how much food is required 156 00:08:38,000 --> 00:08:40,000 and just how much space it takes up. 157 00:08:40,000 --> 00:08:43,000 With feedback from the crews, the food being processed for space 158 00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:47,000 is moving even closer to being as Earth-like as possible. 159 00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:52,000 The most requested food item for astronauts in space is shrimp cocktail. 160 00:08:52,000 --> 00:08:56,000 Some other favorites include steak, lemonade, and brownies. 161 00:08:56,000 --> 00:08:59,000 Coming up on Part 2 of this special edition of Destination Tomorrow, 162 00:08:59,000 --> 00:09:02,000 Jennifer Pulley speaks with Michelle Perchonok 163 00:09:02,000 --> 00:09:05,000 about how NASA plans to feed astronauts in the future. 164 00:09:05,000 --> 00:09:08,000 And Johnny Alonzo speaks with astronaut Mike Full 165 00:09:08,000 --> 00:09:11,000 about what it's actually like to live and eat in space. 166 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:14,000 But first, did you know the term a square meal 167 00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:16,000 came from the fact that early British soldiers 168 00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:19,000 carried a small square cutting board with them to be used at mealtimes? 169 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:22,000 When a soldier had enough food to cover the cutting board, 170 00:09:22,000 --> 00:09:24,000 he had a square meal. 171 00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:32,000 That's all for this edition of NASA's Destination Tomorrow. 172 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:36,000 I'm Kara O'Brien. For all of us here at NASA, we'll see you next time.