From: ndallen@r-node.gts.org (Nigel Allen)
Subject: SPACE FOOD. How Food Processors Manufacture Space Food for NASA
Organization: Echo Beach, Toronto
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 23:13:28 GMT

Here is a press release from the National Food Processors Association.

HARVEST FOR THE HEAVENS 
A Different Way of Thinking

Call it space food...or cuisine for the Cosmos.  Whatever name you
use, space travelers are serving up a new dimension to that old
adage--"dining under the stars."

Work is now underway at research labs in private companies and by
the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to create
new lines of space fare, not only for Earth-circling crews, but for
future expeditions bound for the Moon and the distant planet Mars.

For many people, the thought of food taken into space still
conjures up a mental image of an astronaut hunched over a
toothpaste-like tube, sucking on something ground control swears is
tuna salad.  "I guess NASA did a great job of public relations back
in the Apollo days," explains Charles Bourland, food scientist for
NASA's Man-Systems Division at the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center
in Houston, Texas.

"Our astronauts started eating from a spoon back 15 to 20 years
ago.  They've had utensils and have been eating from open food
containers for a long time," Bourland says.  The first astronauts,
however, did have to endure unappetizing bite-sized, gelatin-coated
cubes, semi-liquids stuffed in aluminum tubes, and freeze-dried
powders. 

[subhead]  The Right Process for the Right Stuff

When a Space Shuttle streaks upward into Florida skies from its
Kennedy Space Center launch pad, onboard are more than a hundred
different food items.  Cereals, scrambled eggs, spaghetti, and
strawberries are included, each having gone through a dehydration
process.  When the foods are ready to be eaten, they are later
rehydrated, using water.  Twenty varieties of drinks, including tea
and coffee, are also dehydrated for use in space.

The standard Shuttle menu supplies each crew member with three
balanced meals, providing 2,800 kilocalories each day.  Diets are
designed to supply each astronaut with all the Recommended Dietary
Allowances (RDA) of vitamins and minerals necessary to work and
live in the microgravity world of space.  Selected foods contain
ample amounts of potassium, calcium, and nitrogen to counter the
loss of these minerals when the human body is exposed to
microgravity.

"All of the foods have to be shelf-stabilized," NASA's Bourland
says, "requiring no refrigeration, special treatment, or handling. 
And the food has to be good for at least a year."  Food used
onboard the Shuttle is processed to reduce the probability of
pathogenic and food-spoilage bacteria, yeasts, and molds being
present.

Shuttle foods take on several different forms: natural,
thermostabilized, irradiated, intermediate moisture process, and
freeze dried.  Food packaging can take the forms of off-the-shelf
thermostabilized cans, flexible pouches, or semirigid containers. 
A chow line on the Shuttle means waiting your turn in front of an
all-in-one food-preparation galley.  This galley comes complete
with a pantry, hot-and-cold water dispensers, an oven that heats up
to 82 degrees C, and food serving trays.  Meal preparation for a
crew of seven is accomplished in about 30 minutes.
        A typical dinner for a high-flying Shuttle astronaut might
consist of a shrimp cocktail, steak, broccoli, rice, and a fruit
cocktail, topped off with chocolate pudding and a grape drink.    

[subhead]  Food Industry on Earth Drives Space Food Developments

NASA is now relying heavily on commercially available food
products.  Among the foods purchased by NASA from nearly 60 outside
vendors are:  roasted salted almonds; kona coffee; chicken, ham,
tuna, and turkey salad spreads from Carnation Company (an NFPA
member); butter crackers; dried beef; and banana, tapioca, and
chocolate puddings from Del Monte Foods Company (an NFPA member).

According to food scientist Bourland, NASA has been basically
living off the food industry for several years.  "At one time, NASA
was in the forefront doing research and development in food
processing, particularly in freeze-drying technologies," he says. 

"In the last 15 years now, we have been depending upon industry,
and the food industry itself, to provide the leading edge of the
research.  We just take what they have and adapt it to space food
systems," Bourland added.

[subhead]  Biotechnology and Space Harvesting: To Mars and Beyond

Clearly, the trek to Mars and back would demand much in the way of
food technology.  That mission could require astronauts to spend
upwards of 500 to 600 days away from Earth.  

Some scientists see use of biotechnology for the flight.  For
example, instead of growing a tomato from a seed, perhaps it will
be more convenient to grow it from a tomato cell.  While this
technology is currently not available, perhaps by the time humans
strike out for Mars, genetic engineering would permit such a food
production concept. 

Thomas Parks, President of Food and Agrosystems, Inc., a food
processing equipment manufacturer and consulting group in
Sunnyvale, has also taken up the challenge of space food
production.  His company is studying food processing techniques for
future space harvesting.  The research can be applied to types of
crops useful for a sprawling Moon outpost.  Wheat, potatoes, and
other plants are under study, as is use of an algae pool to break
down plants to yield oxygen.    

Explains Parks: "In my own mind, I can't help but feel that our
work in controlling waste and pollutants in recycling systems for
space will help society here on Earth.  Pollution on our planet
goes up the stack, down the drain, or out the backdoor.  In a space
station, you can't do that.  It's a different way of thinking."


Leonard David is a space consultant and writer living in
Washington, D.C.


[photos]

[caption for photo of Dr. Matthys]

Dr. Allen Matthys, now Director of Technical Regulatory Affairs at
the National Food Processors Association, is shown here testing
space food applications at Texas A & M University, c. 1964.


[sidebar]

Nothing Like a Chow Down After Liftoff  

[Italics]:  There's only one way to learn what it's like to eat
while spinning around the globe at 17,000 miles per hour.  Ask
people who have been there.  NFPA's Editorial Manager, Michelle
Spring, spoke to former astronaut Bill Pogue about high-velocity
dining.
                      -------------------------
[subhead]  Bill Pogue

Prior to rocketing the first humans into space, nobody knew if a
person could eat in orbit.  Is gravity needed to help digest food? 
Would an astronaut choke trying to swallow food?  These questions
became moot when Soviet cosmonauts and American astronauts
routinely ventured spaceward beginning in the 1960s.  Bill Pogue
was one of those early pioneering astronauts, staying aloft from
late 1973 into early 1974 for 84 days, still the U.S. record.  He
orbited Earth in America's first experimental space station,
Skylab.  Currently, Pogue is a consultant to NASA and is working
with the Boeing Aerospace Company. 

As for the problems of eating in space, Pogue comments:  "Well, you
ingest a lot of air...but swallowing is no problem in zero-G.  I
have felt, though, that the metabolic process is somehow different. 
I was hungrier in space and needed to eat more frequently.  After
about three hours without food, you experience 'space crud'--a
general malaise that affects performance.  It's like coming down
with a cold, only it goes away after you eat," Pogue says.        
 
The foods of astronauts are supplemented with different nutrients,
noted Pogue, and for good reason.  "NASA nutritionists are very
careful to keep the proper mineral balance in our diets.  You tend
to lose sodium, potassium, and calcium in zero-G.  The calcium loss
cannot be compensated for with supplements, though.  The calcium,
or bone mass, loss is related to not being erect for long periods
of time.  Scientists have found the same kind of bone mass loss in
hospital patients confined to a bed for long periods of time."  

For many of the astronauts, it appears that the taste buds are
affected by space travel.  Pogue agrees.  "There have been a number
of tests for this in Skylab.  Basically, things taste blander in
space.  We craved spicy and strong flavors--horseradish, Tabasco
sauce, mustard, garlic, pepper."

Looking out into the future, the veteran astronaut anticipates
problems in regards to multi-national crews and the foods to which
they are accustomed.

"As we move toward a true international cooperation in space,"
Pogue explains, "and as astronauts from all nations eat together in
space stations, we are going to face a problem.  There are clear
differences in dietary balances among different cultures. 
Different countries maintain a different balance of proteins,
carbohydrates, and fats, for instance.  It will be quite a
challenge to come up with an international menu that will
accomodate each country's tastes, habits, and dietary needs," Pogue
concludes.

[END OF SIDEBAR]
[Use posed photo of Bill Pogue]

Xref: sparky sci.space:15535 rec.models.rockets:2990