Activa JavaScript para disfrutar de los vídeos de la Mediateca.
Destination Tomorrow - Episode 16
Ajuste de pantallaEl ajuste de pantalla se aprecia al ver el vídeo en pantalla completa. Elige la presentación que más te guste:
NASA Destination Tomorrow video containing three segments as described below. NASA Destination Tomorrow Food Preservation segment describes the history of Food Preservation and how different groups solved the problem of supplying food over long trips. The Food Preservation segment ends with a description of early food packaging on NASA space trips. NASA Destination Tomorrow Space Food Preparation segment describes the process of preparing food for space, how astronauts prepare and eat food. The Space Food Preparation segment also describes how food is stored and the characteristics of food that appeal to astronauts. The Space Food Preparation segment ends with a Did You Know? segment about the R R S Discovery. NASA Destination Tomorrow Space Food Processing segment describes the different food types, labels, and packages that space food can have. The Space Food Processing segment describes how freeze dried food is rehydrated and how astronauts tell what food items are theirs. The Space Food Processing segment ends with a Did You Know? segment that describes where the term square meal came from.This video is part one of a two part series discussing Food Technology and how it is used by NASA.
Destination Tomorrow.
00:00:00
We take a look at food technology
00:00:01
and how it is used by NASA.
00:00:03
We'll find out about packaging and processing food
00:00:05
for short and long duration space flights.
00:00:08
And we'll see what types of foods
00:00:10
astronauts are enjoying in space.
00:00:12
All this and more next on Destination Tomorrow.
00:00:14
Hello everyone, I'm Cara O'Brien.
00:00:22
Welcome to this special edition of Destination Tomorrow.
00:00:24
On this episode, we'll be focusing on food.
00:00:27
Not just any type of food,
00:00:30
but the food used in the space program.
00:00:32
Food is obviously one of the most important factors
00:00:35
for sustaining life here on Earth.
00:00:38
Throughout history, its abundance has helped
00:00:40
civilizations rise to great heights,
00:00:42
while the lack of it has led to collapse.
00:00:44
The abundance of food also played a major part
00:00:47
in the role of early explorers and conquerors alike.
00:00:49
One major problem that was faced by these groups
00:00:52
was how to preserve the food
00:00:55
that was brought on long journeys.
00:00:56
Although techniques like pickling and salting
00:00:58
helped keep some foods preserved,
00:01:00
hunting and foraging accounted for the bulk
00:01:02
of the food that was eaten.
00:01:04
For example, during the Lewis and Clark expedition,
00:01:05
the men in the Corps of Discovery
00:01:08
generally ate about nine pounds of meat a piece each day.
00:01:10
The bulk of their food came from fresh game
00:01:13
killed along the way,
00:01:15
rather than from food stores that were brought with them.
00:01:16
When game was scarce, they often traded beads and trinkets
00:01:19
with local Indian tribes for fresh meats,
00:01:22
like grizzly bear, buffalo, and when all else failed, dogs.
00:01:24
Having large amounts of food on hand
00:01:31
played an important role in military campaigns as well.
00:01:33
During his reign, Napoleon Bonaparte constantly found
00:01:36
that providing food for his soldiers
00:01:39
was often a harder task than fighting the battles.
00:01:41
Napoleon famously stated that,
00:01:44
an army travels on its stomach, soup makes the soldier.
00:01:46
In fact, Napoleon was so committed to finding a way
00:01:50
to preserve food for his soldiers,
00:01:53
that a prize of 12,000 francs was offered
00:01:54
to the first person who could invent a method
00:01:57
to successfully preserve food.
00:01:59
After years of trying, a Parisian named Nicolas Appert
00:02:01
came up with an idea that worked.
00:02:05
Appert successfully preserved food by partially cooking it,
00:02:07
sealing it in glass bottles with a cork,
00:02:10
then immersing the bottle in boiling water.
00:02:13
This process allowed the remaining air
00:02:16
to be expelled through the boiling process,
00:02:18
keeping the food fresh.
00:02:20
Appert's preservation technique proved so successful
00:02:21
that he was awarded the 12,000 franc prize
00:02:24
by Napoleon himself in 1810.
00:02:27
This represented the origination
00:02:30
of the modern canning process for food.
00:02:32
Not to be outdone, by about 1812,
00:02:34
the British army was preserving food in tin cans
00:02:37
rather than in glass bottles.
00:02:40
Tin cans were much more durable than glass
00:02:41
and proved to be easier to store.
00:02:44
By about 1818, the British Navy was storing
00:02:46
over 40,000 pounds of food preserved in cans
00:02:49
on board its ships, keeping crews well-fed and healthy.
00:02:52
This military use eventually trickled down
00:02:55
into everyday civilian life,
00:02:58
helping the general public live healthier lives as well.
00:03:00
The preserving process became even more widespread
00:03:03
in the late 1800s with Frenchman Louis Pasteur's work
00:03:06
in germ theory.
00:03:09
This theory proved that tiny living microbes
00:03:11
caused food to spoil.
00:03:13
In his research, Pasteur determined he could gently heat
00:03:15
foods and liquids to a temperature
00:03:18
that would kill the microbes without altering the taste.
00:03:20
Then chilling the foods and liquids
00:03:23
would prevent any remaining microbes from multiplying.
00:03:24
This process is now known as pasteurization.
00:03:27
Food preservation became even more interesting
00:03:30
with the development of space flight.
00:03:33
In order to undertake manned missions in microgravity,
00:03:35
NASA scientists needed to understand the relationship
00:03:38
between food and the astronaut in space.
00:03:41
In the early days of the space program,
00:03:44
scientists were unsure if the human body
00:03:46
could physically even swallow food in space.
00:03:48
The proof they were looking for came
00:03:51
on the third Mercury flight when John Glenn
00:03:53
consumed applesauce from an aluminum tube.
00:03:55
Most of the early food items packaged for space
00:03:58
were chosen more for utility than for taste.
00:04:01
This is because in the pressurized weightlessness of space,
00:04:04
things like crumbs, liquids, and odors do not simply go away.
00:04:07
They float around the spacecraft,
00:04:11
decreasing the air quality,
00:04:12
while also being potentially distracting.
00:04:14
To help alleviate this problem,
00:04:17
most food was stored in aluminum tubes
00:04:18
that look very similar to toothpaste tubes.
00:04:21
There were also packages of small,
00:04:24
bite-sized cubes of food
00:04:25
that were approximately half an inch in size.
00:04:27
These cubes consisted of a high-calorie mixture
00:04:30
of proteins, such as fruits and nuts,
00:04:32
coated with an edible film to prevent crumbs.
00:04:35
Although the meals contained
00:04:37
the appropriate daily amount of calories,
00:04:39
the food was not appealing to most astronauts.
00:04:41
Often, crews would return from space having lost weight
00:04:44
because they did not eat all of their assigned meals.
00:04:47
To help find new ways to make food in space more acceptable,
00:04:49
NASA scientists began experimenting
00:04:52
with new types of food, new packaging,
00:04:54
and new processing procedures.
00:04:57
To help us understand how food is now prepared
00:04:59
and packaged for spaceflight,
00:05:01
Tonya St. Romaine spoke with Connie Eartley
00:05:02
at Space Food Systems Laboratory
00:05:05
at NASA Johnson Space Center.
00:05:07
Food plays a very important role in everyone's life.
00:05:09
We all have a comfort food or a favorite food
00:05:17
that helps us get through those stressful days.
00:05:20
But many of us also have foods that we find objectionable,
00:05:23
for cultural reasons or simply for the way it tastes.
00:05:26
This is true for astronauts in space
00:05:30
as well as for us down here on Earth.
00:05:32
But in the confines of a spacecraft,
00:05:34
your food choices are somewhat limited.
00:05:36
Because food is much more than just sustenance,
00:05:39
affecting our mental happiness
00:05:42
as well as our physical abilities,
00:05:44
NASA researchers have worked hard to prepare meals
00:05:45
that astronauts look forward to eating.
00:05:48
But space is a unique environment,
00:05:51
so the food not only has to taste good,
00:05:53
it also has to have a long shelf life,
00:05:55
it has to be able to be stowed effectively,
00:05:57
and it has to be able to withstand the rigors of space.
00:06:00
To help us understand exactly what goes into preparing food
00:06:03
for space, I spoke with Connie Eartley
00:06:07
in the Space Food Systems Laboratory
00:06:09
at NASA's Johnson Space Center.
00:06:12
Food for the astronauts has changed extensively
00:06:14
over the years.
00:06:17
The days of mercury are certainly gone.
00:06:18
Cubes and tubes are no more.
00:06:20
Astronauts eat a food system that's very similar
00:06:23
to what they eat here on Earth.
00:06:26
It's very familiar, all kinds of food items.
00:06:28
They can eat steak, shrimp cocktail,
00:06:32
chocolate pudding cake, name it.
00:06:34
They eat all kinds of food.
00:06:36
Here we have peanut cubes and sugar cookie cubes.
00:06:39
How do you eat these, or what?
00:06:43
Well, again, these are from very early in the space program,
00:06:44
and so these, literally, these packages would be cut open.
00:06:48
They would put these cubes in their mouth and consume them.
00:06:51
These are one of the not-so-appetizing things,
00:06:54
and this is how far our food has advanced.
00:06:56
The only thing that they have now that they just cut open
00:06:58
and pop in their mouth would be something
00:07:00
like candy-coated peanuts or cookies or something like that.
00:07:02
The rest of these food items,
00:07:05
rehydratables have to be rehydrated
00:07:07
and heated before consumed.
00:07:11
These types of food items,
00:07:13
they also are heated before they're consumed,
00:07:15
and they're just simply, pouches are cut open
00:07:18
with a pair of scissors, and the astronauts eat right out
00:07:21
of it with regular utensils,
00:07:24
so it's just like eating at home.
00:07:25
Providing an acceptable food system
00:07:28
is very important to us.
00:07:29
Food fills a psychological need for the astronauts,
00:07:31
so we take our jobs very seriously
00:07:33
when we work to provide nutritious
00:07:35
and tasty foods for the astronauts,
00:07:37
so visual aspects of food is very important, as is taste.
00:07:40
Food has to taste and look good
00:07:46
for someone to want to eat it,
00:07:47
so we take that very seriously.
00:07:49
We've changed that from the beginning days
00:07:50
from tubes and cubes, and we provide things
00:07:53
from tomatoes and eggplant and butterscotch pudding
00:07:56
all the way to peanut butter and cinnamon rolls.
00:08:00
When developing, we don't just have something
00:08:02
that meets the astronauts' nutritional needs.
00:08:05
It has to look good and taste good,
00:08:07
and when they open a pouch, you want them to smell,
00:08:08
oh, that smells just like meatloaf,
00:08:11
and that takes me home.
00:08:13
Connie, how many items are in the menu?
00:08:14
We have over 250 different food items on our food list,
00:08:16
a huge variety of foods.
00:08:21
All of these foods are shelf-stable food items.
00:08:23
They do not need to be refrigerated or frozen.
00:08:26
That is the driving factor in our food system.
00:08:28
We have freeze-dried foods.
00:08:31
Freeze-dried foods make up a big portion
00:08:33
of the food system, specifically on the space shuttle.
00:08:36
They are foods that have had the moisture removed,
00:08:38
and before they can be consumed,
00:08:41
they have to add water added back to them,
00:08:43
and the labels on the food give the astronauts instructions
00:08:45
on how to rehydrate the food properly.
00:08:48
This is our most favorite dish, shrimp cocktail.
00:08:51
We add three ounces of cold water from the galley,
00:08:54
and you can see the little rotary dial
00:08:57
where you select the amount of water,
00:08:59
and you see two switches.
00:09:02
The yellow is the hot, and the blue is the cold.
00:09:03
Then you kind of squish the water into the shrimps
00:09:05
and wait about 10 minutes for the shrimp
00:09:09
to totally rehydrate,
00:09:11
and it actually comes together and forms a nice sauce.
00:09:14
Now, on Earth, you might eat with a knife, spoon,
00:09:17
and spork, and spork in space,
00:09:19
scissors and a spoon is all you need,
00:09:22
and we use the scissors to open up the food tray,
00:09:24
and one of the features of all of our food
00:09:28
is it has a lot of heavy sauce,
00:09:30
which kind of holds it together,
00:09:32
and then we just use our spoon,
00:09:33
and because of the sauce, it doesn't float away.
00:09:36
The surface tension holds it there.
00:09:39
It's real nice.
00:09:41
Okay, so we have a little Italian vegetables here,
00:09:42
but we've got chicken.
00:09:45
How do you not need to refrigerate the chicken salad?
00:09:46
Because the moisture has been removed in the food,
00:09:50
that's what renders it shelf-stable.
00:09:54
There is nothing there that would spoil.
00:09:56
When you add water to these, do they grow?
00:10:00
Do the sizes grow like a sponge?
00:10:02
Slightly.
00:10:04
There is a vacuum on all of these packages,
00:10:05
so all the oxygen has been removed from the package,
00:10:09
and that also helps extend its shelf life,
00:10:11
so water is introduced through this septum,
00:10:13
and it does fill out this pouch.
00:10:16
This actual portion won't expand.
00:10:19
The pouch will expand a little bit
00:10:22
once that moisture is introduced,
00:10:24
but this is the actual size.
00:10:26
Freeze-drying removes the water,
00:10:30
but doesn't disrupt the cellular integrity of the food,
00:10:31
so you can add water back,
00:10:33
and you get exactly what you started with.
00:10:35
This isn't a condensed version.
00:10:37
It's just literally just missing the water.
00:10:38
And the portion sizes are fairly small.
00:10:41
Why do you keep them that way?
00:10:43
Things do look small,
00:10:44
and that is one of the questions that we get often,
00:10:45
but when you're actually weighing food
00:10:47
and giving what is a recommended serving size,
00:10:51
they tend to be smaller
00:10:53
than what the average person considers.
00:10:54
So you can't do the biggie size in space.
00:10:56
No supersize, that's right.
00:10:59
And so there are no leftovers.
00:11:00
That's very important.
00:11:02
What they do have in a serving size,
00:11:03
they do need to consume it,
00:11:05
because what they don't consume out of a package,
00:11:06
that becomes trash,
00:11:09
and that becomes something that has to be maintained,
00:11:11
and not to mention, it could smell.
00:11:13
If you don't eat an entire,
00:11:15
say you're eating tuna fish,
00:11:17
and you don't eat an entire package of tuna fish,
00:11:18
that's a smell you're gonna have to live with
00:11:20
for a long time,
00:11:22
so it's to your advantage to consume
00:11:23
the entire contents of the package.
00:11:25
And this is interesting.
00:11:27
There's a cinnamon roll in here.
00:11:27
There is a cinnamon roll in here.
00:11:30
This is an extended shelf life bread product.
00:11:32
It also lasts at room temperature for a couple of years,
00:11:34
which is very different from most of the bread products
00:11:38
you can think of,
00:11:41
because bread molds in a couple of weeks.
00:11:42
These have been formulated so that the water activity,
00:11:44
which is the amount of free moisture
00:11:46
that would be available to microbes if they were present,
00:11:49
this has been lowered so much
00:11:52
that if there was anything present,
00:11:54
it couldn't spoil the product.
00:11:56
This is one of the older,
00:11:57
you were saying it's come a long way.
00:11:59
There aren't cans as much anymore, is that correct?
00:12:01
That's right.
00:12:03
We have moved away from the can.
00:12:04
We have very few items that are in cans right now.
00:12:07
Off the top of my head,
00:12:09
I can think of about three or four.
00:12:10
We have moved to the pouch.
00:12:11
These foods are thermally processed.
00:12:15
It's another word for canned food,
00:12:18
or we also call it retorting.
00:12:21
The food inside of this container has been heat treated
00:12:24
so that the food is what is called commercially sterile.
00:12:27
We use this pouch for several reasons.
00:12:31
This is a technology from the military.
00:12:34
This is what looks like their meal-ready-to-eat packages,
00:12:36
however, these are our formulations in these packages.
00:12:40
The pouch is great because,
00:12:43
one, when processing,
00:12:46
it's not so rigid like this can,
00:12:49
and in order to heat treat this can,
00:12:51
you might end up over-processing the food item.
00:12:53
In this pouch, which is nice and flat and uniform,
00:12:55
products don't get over-processed,
00:12:58
so you end up with a high-quality food item.
00:13:00
Also, what's really nice is they stow very efficiently.
00:13:03
This pouch takes up a lot less room
00:13:05
than the bulky, rigid can,
00:13:08
so we can stow more food items much more efficiently
00:13:09
and use our container space as best that we can.
00:13:13
And then last, it's a means of trash management.
00:13:17
A can, again, is very bulky.
00:13:21
If you have an empty can to deal with in the trash,
00:13:23
it takes up a lot of space.
00:13:24
This just folds completely flat,
00:13:26
and you can store a lot of empty pouches
00:13:28
in a lot less space than you can store bulky cans.
00:13:32
In the drinks, all of our beverages are powdered.
00:13:35
All of them come in this type of package.
00:13:38
They also have a label,
00:13:41
which tells them the name of the product,
00:13:43
plus how much moisture needs to be added
00:13:45
to the product before consuming.
00:13:48
What's unique about this is you have to have a special straw
00:13:50
to consume this beverage,
00:13:52
and this straw is inserted into this package.
00:13:54
It actually opens up a septum,
00:13:57
which it opens up a one-way valve,
00:13:59
and so in microgravity,
00:14:02
liquid's wanting to come right out of the straw,
00:14:03
so we have a clamp on the straw to keep the liquid in.
00:14:06
And then when the astronauts are ready to consume,
00:14:08
they release the clamp.
00:14:10
The liquid flows into their mouth.
00:14:12
They have to clamp it off,
00:14:13
and then they have to remember that above the clamp,
00:14:15
they need to get that liquid out, too,
00:14:17
or else they've got some free liquid floating around.
00:14:18
And the astronauts are encouraged
00:14:21
to keep their fluid intake up.
00:14:23
It's very easy to forget to drink in space,
00:14:25
and so they're encouraged to do that often,
00:14:27
and they have plenty of drinks
00:14:28
to keep them very well hydrated.
00:14:30
We also offer every combination of coffee and tea
00:14:32
that you could imagine,
00:14:35
so they have a wide selection to choose from.
00:14:37
But I say before you get the M&Ms,
00:14:40
they have to eat their spinach.
00:14:42
In a perfect world, you would.
00:14:44
We do plan menus for all of the astronauts
00:14:46
so that their nutritional needs are met,
00:14:50
but when it comes down to it,
00:14:52
when they get ready to eat in space,
00:14:53
they eat what they want to eat.
00:14:55
Coming up next, we'll find out
00:14:57
why all the food flown into space
00:14:58
has special cooking instructions.
00:15:00
But first, did you know that the Space Shuttle Discovery
00:15:02
took its name from Captain Robert Scott's
00:15:05
famous Antarctic Exploration Vessel?
00:15:07
The RRS Discovery was built in 1901,
00:15:10
designed specifically
00:15:13
for an extended Antarctic expedition.
00:15:14
Because the vessel would be in Antarctica
00:15:17
for over two years,
00:15:18
it was required to carry enough food and equipment
00:15:20
to support the 40-man crew until she could be resupplied.
00:15:22
With about 35,000 pounds of preserved meats
00:15:26
and another 42,000 pounds of flour,
00:15:29
the Discovery left for Antarctica on August 6th, 1901.
00:15:31
Although there was a large supply of food aboard,
00:15:36
the crew would also hunt seals and penguins,
00:15:39
which helped prevent a common ailment of the time,
00:15:41
scurvy.
00:15:44
The Discovery returned from Antarctica
00:15:45
on September 10th, 1904,
00:15:47
and in 1986, was opened to the public as a museum ship.
00:15:49
It is now permanently moored in Dundee, Scotland.
00:15:53
Let's rejoin Tonya and Connie
00:16:02
back in the Food Systems Laboratory
00:16:03
at NASA Johnson Space Center.
00:16:05
All of the food packages have a label on them
00:16:07
and it identifies the food
00:16:11
and it has some rehydration and heating information.
00:16:13
This is vegetable quiche
00:16:15
and it actually says to add 50 milliliters of hot water
00:16:17
and to heat for five to 10 minutes.
00:16:20
So there are guidelines, they don't have to guess.
00:16:22
This amount is so that the food properly hydrates
00:16:26
and this time is so that it has the time
00:16:28
to properly hydrate
00:16:31
and then it's at its optimum for consuming.
00:16:32
The fuel cells used on the shuttle
00:16:35
not only provide energy to run vehicle systems,
00:16:36
but also produce water as a byproduct.
00:16:40
Rather than dispose of this water,
00:16:43
astronauts use it to help rehydrate their food.
00:16:44
This system works so well
00:16:47
that about half of the food and beverages
00:16:49
now consumed aboard the shuttle
00:16:51
are in the freeze-dried form.
00:16:54
To help food move from the freeze-dried form
00:16:55
to an edible meal,
00:16:58
a piece of equipment called a rehydrator is used.
00:16:59
The rehydrator measures the correct amount of water needed
00:17:03
to be added to each food or drink package
00:17:07
and allows the crew member to choose
00:17:09
either hot or chilled water.
00:17:11
Once the water is added to the food,
00:17:14
it can be eaten in a matter of a few minutes.
00:17:15
Although this might not sound very appealing,
00:17:18
most crews give high marks for the food
00:17:20
that's prepared for their missions.
00:17:23
Why are some of these items
00:17:24
packaged differently than others?
00:17:26
The different types of food items
00:17:27
determine what type of package the food is packaged in.
00:17:29
All of our freeze-dried rehydratables
00:17:33
are in this, what we call an EDO package.
00:17:35
It's this clear package that has a septum
00:17:38
so that the food can be rehydrated.
00:17:41
The other types of foods that are in clear packages
00:17:43
are what we call our bite-sized or just natural form foods,
00:17:45
granola bars, cookies, candies, nuts.
00:17:49
They're all in these clear types of packages.
00:17:51
This is what was developed for the food system.
00:17:53
However, these types of food packages
00:17:56
are not 100% oxygen and moisture impermeable.
00:17:59
They're actually over-wrapped
00:18:02
in these types of foil packages.
00:18:04
We also provide condiments.
00:18:06
Peanut butter is actually one of the condiments
00:18:07
that we provide.
00:18:09
Very popular.
00:18:10
We also have mustard, mayonnaise, ketchup, Tabasco sauce,
00:18:11
relish, you name it.
00:18:15
If we don't have it as a standard condiment,
00:18:16
we'll get it for a crew member if they request it.
00:18:18
Specifically, if they're on the space station
00:18:20
and they request it, we wanna keep them very happy.
00:18:22
We also have salt and pepper.
00:18:25
Not your regular salt and pepper, though,
00:18:27
because if you had a regular salt and pepper shaker,
00:18:29
it would go everywhere, but the food,
00:18:32
and that would create a huge mess.
00:18:33
So we have liquid salt and pepper,
00:18:35
and this is a saline solution, just salt and water.
00:18:37
And then this is pepper.
00:18:40
It's a pepper extract in vegetable oil.
00:18:43
We are in Houston, so tortillas are a specialty, I assume.
00:18:45
Tortillas are very special.
00:18:49
They might be one of the most popular food items
00:18:51
that we have on the menu.
00:18:53
They not only serve as a food item,
00:18:54
they actually work as a tool.
00:18:56
Also, they have replaced bread,
00:18:58
and the astronauts use tortillas
00:19:01
to make every combination that you could dream of.
00:19:03
So is all the food made here at Johnson?
00:19:05
Not all of the food is made here at the Johnson Space Center.
00:19:08
There are some food items that are what we call
00:19:12
cots, commercially off-the-shelf items,
00:19:15
things like candy-coated chocolates
00:19:17
or a granola bar or crackers
00:19:20
that we will actually buy from a food service distributor
00:19:22
or from the grocery store, and then they're repackaged.
00:19:24
Those are food items that don't need to be developed
00:19:27
specifically for spaceflight.
00:19:30
We don't want to reinvent the wheel, so to speak.
00:19:32
Do you put any special markings or anything on the packages
00:19:35
so everybody knows whose food is whose?
00:19:38
All of the food items are actually color-coded.
00:19:40
Each astronaut has a color that belongs to them.
00:19:42
Right now, the station astronauts
00:19:45
have red, yellow, and green dots,
00:19:47
and so all they have to do is look on their food package,
00:19:49
and in this corner of the label is a color dot,
00:19:52
and so if you're red, you can look for your red food.
00:19:54
Now, if it's regular menu food,
00:19:57
you might not be so hurt
00:19:59
if someone happens to eat your red carrot coins,
00:20:01
but if it's bonus food
00:20:04
that you've specifically picked out for yourself,
00:20:05
you're not gonna be so happy
00:20:09
when someone eats something that has a red dot on it
00:20:10
or came out of a box that had your name on it.
00:20:13
Okay, some astronauts say that food actually tastes different
00:20:15
once they get up there than what they've had down here
00:20:18
when they were eating it.
00:20:20
How do you compensate for that?
00:20:21
That is true.
00:20:23
Some astronauts do note that food tastes different in orbit
00:20:24
as opposed to what it tastes like here on the ground.
00:20:28
One of the reasons that that could happen
00:20:31
is there is a fluid shift
00:20:32
when astronauts are in microgravity,
00:20:33
and so because of that fluid shift,
00:20:36
it might actually lessen their taste and smell perception.
00:20:38
Also, most of what, when you're eating,
00:20:42
most of what you're tasting
00:20:44
comes from actually from what you're smelling,
00:20:46
so if there is that fluid shift,
00:20:48
you might not be smelling as much,
00:20:50
therefore not tasting things
00:20:53
that may not appear to be as flavorful,
00:20:54
but we do actually take some measures
00:20:57
to compensate for that.
00:20:59
We offer Tabasco sauce.
00:21:01
We offer picani sauce and hot sauce,
00:21:02
things to jazz it up, spice things up a little bit.
00:21:04
Some astronauts' tastes change from Earth
00:21:08
to when they are in orbit.
00:21:11
Someone says that they can't live
00:21:12
without orange juice for breakfast,
00:21:14
then when they get into space,
00:21:16
they can't stand orange juice.
00:21:17
There's not necessarily an explanation for it.
00:21:19
It just sometimes happens,
00:21:21
or some astronauts don't particularly like
00:21:22
something on the ground.
00:21:24
When they're up there, they can't get enough of it.
00:21:25
When an astronaut's getting ready to go into orbit,
00:21:28
how do they decide what they're gonna eat?
00:21:30
How do they pick the food
00:21:31
and create a menu for themselves?
00:21:32
The astronauts come to our lab
00:21:34
and they actually go through a process called approbation,
00:21:35
where they consume the menu
00:21:38
the way it has been planned for them.
00:21:40
So they will come to our lab
00:21:41
and they will eat breakfast.
00:21:43
They'll eat the entire breakfast that's planned for them,
00:21:44
then they'll eat lunch,
00:21:46
and that gives them the opportunity
00:21:48
to eat the food as they would in space
00:21:49
and see how much they like it,
00:21:52
because when they're in our lab
00:21:53
going through a food evaluation session,
00:21:55
they're only eating one or two bites of each food item,
00:21:57
and that's not a good indicator
00:21:59
or a very good indicator of how well they like a food.
00:22:01
When they come in and they sit down and they eat breakfast
00:22:04
and they eat an entire serving of scrambled eggs
00:22:06
or an entire serving of waffles,
00:22:08
then they can say, yeah, I like it that much.
00:22:10
I definitely want that on my menu,
00:22:12
or no way, just a bite or two is enough.
00:22:13
I'm not eating that.
00:22:15
Or they might decide that they like something so much
00:22:16
that they want it to repeat more than once on their menu,
00:22:18
so that gives them the opportunity
00:22:21
to taste everything again,
00:22:22
give feedback before their menu is finalized,
00:22:24
because it is very important
00:22:27
that the astronauts eat exactly what they want
00:22:28
and they're never given something that they don't like.
00:22:31
On early missions, shuttle crews
00:22:33
were all given the exact same meal to eat.
00:22:35
Although always nutritious,
00:22:38
astronauts would sometimes be stuck
00:22:39
with a food they didn't like.
00:22:41
NASA scientists soon realized
00:22:43
personalized meals made more sense,
00:22:45
so after the seventh shuttle mission,
00:22:47
NASA began allowing each astronaut
00:22:49
to choose their own menu.
00:22:51
Currently, International Space Station astronauts
00:22:53
can choose from hundreds of different food items
00:22:55
to make up their personal menu.
00:22:58
When an astronaut's menu's been chosen,
00:23:00
it's analyzed by a dietician
00:23:02
to make sure it's nutritionally appropriate.
00:23:04
Once the menu's approved, the meals are packaged
00:23:07
and placed in containers for spaceflight.
00:23:09
This is a food container
00:23:12
that they use on the International Space Station.
00:23:13
This is what all of their food items are stowed in.
00:23:15
It's labeled on three sides with labels.
00:23:20
All of the American food that is on the space station
00:23:24
has a blue label,
00:23:27
and all of the Russian food containers have red labels.
00:23:28
And each label has a lot of information on it.
00:23:31
It describes what kind of food container it is.
00:23:33
We've broken foods down into different categories.
00:23:35
This actually is a meat and entrees container.
00:23:37
It has a container number,
00:23:40
so for inventory tracking purposes, we have that.
00:23:41
Barcode also serves for that purpose.
00:23:44
A big number nine that shows what
00:23:46
ISS expedition crew gets this container.
00:23:48
So when they're unloading and moving around containers,
00:23:52
because space is at a premium on the space station,
00:23:55
it's a lot easier to identify your missions,
00:23:57
increment number, and of course, bilingual labels,
00:24:00
so we have things in Cyrillic.
00:24:03
Food items are stowed in these containers very efficiently.
00:24:06
Every bit of the space is utilized.
00:24:11
And what's unique about these containers
00:24:13
is they're actually collapsible.
00:24:14
These pins remove from these containers,
00:24:16
and these walls collapse.
00:24:20
So it encourages the crew members
00:24:22
to break these containers down.
00:24:25
They're actually recyclable containers.
00:24:27
Each one of these food containers
00:24:29
actually holds enough food
00:24:31
for three crew members for one day.
00:24:33
So that gives you an idea of how much food is required
00:24:35
and just how much space it takes up.
00:24:40
With feedback from the crews,
00:24:42
the food being processed for space
00:24:43
is moving even closer to being as Earth-like as possible.
00:24:45
The most requested food item
00:24:49
for astronauts in space is shrimp cocktail.
00:24:50
Some other favorites include steak, lemonade, and brownies.
00:24:54
Coming up on part two of this special edition
00:24:57
of Destination Tomorrow,
00:24:59
Jennifer Pulley speaks with Michelle Perchonok
00:25:01
about how NASA plans to feed astronauts in the future.
00:25:03
And Johnny Alonzo speaks with astronaut Mike Foll
00:25:06
about what it's actually like to live and eat in space.
00:25:09
But first, did you know the term a square meal
00:25:12
came from the fact that early British soldiers
00:25:15
carried a small square cutting board with them
00:25:17
to be used at mealtimes?
00:25:19
When a soldier had enough food to cover the cutting board,
00:25:21
he had a square meal.
00:25:24
That's all for this edition of NASA's Destination Tomorrow.
00:25:30
I'm Kara O'Brien.
00:25:33
For all of us here at NASA, we'll see you next time.
00:25:35
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
00:25:51
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
00:26:21
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
00:26:51
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
00:27:12
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
00:27:21
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
00:27:28
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
00:27:35
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
00:27:42
- Valoración:
- Eres el primero. Inicia sesión para valorar el vídeo.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- Idioma/s:
- Niveles educativos:
- ▼ Mostrar / ocultar niveles
- Nivel Intermedio
- Autor/es:
- NASA LaRC Office of Education
- Subido por:
- EducaMadrid
- Licencia:
- Reconocimiento - No comercial - Sin obra derivada
- Visualizaciones:
- 565
- Fecha:
- 28 de mayo de 2007 - 17:05
- Visibilidad:
- Público
- Enlace Relacionado:
- NASAs center for distance learning
- Duración:
- 27′ 50″
- Relación de aspecto:
- 4:3 Hasta 2009 fue el estándar utilizado en la televisión PAL; muchas pantallas de ordenador y televisores usan este estándar, erróneamente llamado cuadrado, cuando en la realidad es rectangular o wide.
- Resolución:
- 480x360 píxeles
- Tamaño:
- 162.02 MBytes
