Cooking on the Skylab Workshop Station

The most luxurious space station in history - the Skylab Workshop Station, is also the first orbiting outpost where cooking food onboard has been made possible for the crew.

The Skylab has a fully functioning kitchen, equipped with refrigerators and non-chilled food storage continers spread all over the space station. Space cookers are specially modfied machines that can cook almost any type of food cuisine, even in the weightless envrionment of space.

Like on Earth there are three meals per day for the 140+ crew. A minimum of two chefs are stationed permanantly on-board, where serving missions last five or more years.

## Overview

The Skylab Workshop Station has two food prep areas, and one dedicated kitchen compartment (located on the floor in the Workshop Segment). The other food prep area is located in Node 1 in the International Modular Section (Hab & Science segment) and doesn't have dedicated food cooking equipment other than heaters for pre-packaged (ready meal) food.

#### Logistics

Food and water supplies are routinely delivered to the space station on Space Shuttle flights, and cargo resupply missions on the ESA Cygnus, AEB Progresso and NASA HTV spacecraft.

The ingredients (and pre-prepped food) are made in food processing plants spread all over the world, which utilize hundreds of food companies — from well known brands to many small buisnesses such as:

* Papa John's (pizza)
* KFC (chicken and fries)
* Sbarro
* Amy's Kitchen (family-owned contemporary organic ingredients and ready meals company)
* T.G.I Fridays
* The Elements (buffet ingredients and recipies)
* Chopstix (Chinese cuisine)

#### Delivery

The companies and contractors manufacture and supply the ingredients and/or pre-made meals, sealed in plastic or metal foil packaging filled with Nitrogen. They're all flown in refrigerated containers by supersonic cargo aircraft to the Space Station Processing Facility at Kennedy Space Center, where the're stored until ready for launch. Non-refrigerated items such as cereal and pasta ingredients are delivered in traditional cardboard boxes.

Drinks are filled in aluminum or plastic cartons with valve-operated plastic strawers. Unfortunarely carbonated sodas are prohibited on the station, due to the risk of minor explosions and giant bubbles that can damage equipment.

When a KSC-launch window closes in, the assigned food containers are immidiately loaded in their respective spacecraft (which can be a shuttle container or a Cygnus and HTV spaceship). For Progresso spacecraft, the refrigerated containers are flown by a concorde to their launch facility located some distance away (which can range from the other side of the country, to international launch sites).

All food delivery spacecraft have separate dedicated fuel cells to keep their contents no higher than 4\*C for refrigerated ingredients, and -20\*C for frozen food. Once the spacecraft docks to the Skylab space station, the station crew open the hatch and unbox the items.

#### Inventory stock

In the weightless environment of the space station, the crews do not need to worry about the cold air from the refrigerators from leaking out (as hot air doen't rise in space). This makes it ideal to load one fridge in one shot. Lots of large easy-to-access storage compartments are provided for non-refrigerated food items are available throughout the Skylab, with lables indicating "food storage cupboard".

Crews float the chilled items from the spacecraft to various fridges all over the station:

* Small refrigerators and freezers are located in racks inside the cylindrical modules of the International Modular and Core sections of the Hab & Science Segment. In all, there are around 24 units, which collectivly can store up to 10 tons of food.

* The four large refrigerators in the workshop segment can each hold 2 cubic meters of food for refreshments.

Water is delivered in bulk (originally via small cargo spacecraft like the food items) but nowadays delivered on space shuttle refueling missions. Many storage tanks in the workshop segment, and the ITUS can collectively hold up to 40 tons of water.

A single fully-stocked Skylab Workshop Station can support a crew of 160 with enough food (all three meals a day + drinks) for two months. Water is highly recyclable and can support the same crew for over a year before a refill and water treatment process is required.

## Cooking equipment

The Skylab Workshop Station's workshop segment has a fully-functioning space kitchen equipped with a variety of cooking equipment, that has been modified for zero gravity use. These include:

* Three space cookers — they use a combination of infrared radiation-emitting magnetrons and general heating elements. They're designed for food items such as steak, chicken, pizza, baked potatoes, etc. and are not optimized for food that contains large quantities of liduids such as gravy or sauce (as it will float around inside the oven). These have advanced cooking timers and automatic shut-off button for safety and ensuring complete cooking time without burning the food.
* Two magnetic induction cooktops — special space cooking machines that are ideal for cooking or frying food items such as noodles, scrambled egg, tomato salsa, etc. They work using magnetic inducers that excite steel cooking pans (with glass lids to keep the contents inside). A special internal air suction system also aids in the liquid staying on the bottom of the pan in the weighless environment.
* A chopping glovebox — a glass enclosure with glove holes, are used to slice and dice onions, peppers, potatoes, vegetables and other ingredients without anything floating around and creating a mess.
* Microwave ovens
* Overhead CRT monitors and laptops that display the cooking recipes
* Space washing sink
* Automated space dishwashing machine

The kitchen has a sophisticated extration and ventilation system that removes and treats cooking smells, and purifies the air to ensure that the oxygen supply stays at the right level for the Chefs. When the kitchen is not in use at times, many of these equipment are retracted in their stow position.

## Food ingredients

Just like a multi-cultural buffet restaurant on Earth, a huge variety of food cuisines from all over the world are avaiable to eat in space aboard the space station. A typical spacecraft delivering food consists of the following basic ingredients, and a flight manual containing recipies for different dishes.

Data from a typical total food capacity of SWS - mass up to 24,730 kg (excluding water)

 🔷
 📦

* 2,600 kg chicken ❄️
* 1,400 kg beef ❄️
* 700 kg lamb chops ❄️
* 1,800 kg pork strips ❄️
* 435 kg duck ❄️
* 2,100 kg pasta (spaghetti, routini, etc) 📦
* 3,344 kg tomato cans 📦
* 2,950 kg rice 📦
* 4,600 kg fruit, veg and carb (including apples, bananas, lettuce, onions, carrots, peas, parsnips, peppers, potatoes, fries, etc) 🔷
* 1,000 kg pre-processed vegetables packages (chopped) ❄️
* 1,400 kg cake making ingridents (flour, sugar) 📦
* 600 L processed eggs (separated whites and yolk) 🔷
* 20 kg salt 📦
* 15 kg spices 📦
* 35 kg cooking flatware and cutlery 📦
* 1,700 L fruit smoothies and sqaush concentrate drinks 🔷

All these food items arrive are delivered in thick plastic transparent bags with zip locks, and frozen items can be delivered in bulk by space shuttles and Cygnus cargo vehicles. Throughout the space station, there are lots of refrigerator compartments, freezing boxes and storage containers for these food items; specificially in racks in the International Modular Section, and SC-62 containers in the Workshop Segment. Together they can collectively hold over twenty metric tons of food.

Food companies such as Lidl, Aldi, IKEA and Papa Johns have teamed up with ESA and NASA to provide pre-prepared food meals in aluminum containers (similar to airline meals).

#### Meals prep general procedures

When preparing meals, care is taken seriously to prevent it from floating everywhere.

* Granular ingredients such as rice, flour, sugar, spices, etc. are prepped inside one of three large gloveboxes with an air-filtration system, equipped with a hatch for loading.
* Other gloveboxes are used for chopping fruit and veg, potatoes, and other ingredients. A slicing and dicing machine does the work, while the chef simply loads the machine.
* Cooking worktops use magentic induction equipment, which is far safer and energy efficient than heating elements.
* Pots and pans have glass lids that open and close with a hinge attached to the handle, and have an air valve to vent pressure.
* Infrared and Microwave ovens are available for the chefs and station crew to heat-up ready meals; and are found all over the Workshop Segment and Core Section.
* Deep frying is done inside a small centrifuge about the size of a large washing machine. The centrifuge containing a magnetic induction fryer filled with 5L of corn oil, spins, creating 0.4g of centripetal acceleration that behaves like artificial gravity, keeping the oil and anything being fried in it contained. When the machine is not in use, a lid is placed automatically over the frying tray. Oil is filtered everday, and changed once a week.

## Chefs

The Skylab Workshop Station employs two permanant space chefs, and can support a cooking team of 7 individuals.

### Recruitment

The Skylab Workshop Station space chefs are recruited in a selection process administered by the Director of the Skylab space station program (which is currently Gene Kranz).

#### Minimum Requirements

To be eligible for the program, candidates must meet any of the following:

* Willing to spend at least a year or more in space at a time
* Excellent knowledge of multiple menu cuisines
* Have at least 3 years experience working in the restaurant or food serving buisness, and in high star rating dining facilities (4 is minimum).
* Excellent managerial and hygiene management skills
* Pass the standard IAC training course.
* Excellent customer service skills
* Have at least a high school equivalant diploma or certificate in cooking.

Numerous restaurants apply for the Skylab space chef program via online applications, which are carefully reviewed. Next applicants are examined by rendezvousing at the Johnson Space Center for cooking skill capability, then tasked accordingly. Out of a 100 or so candidates, only 7-10 are actually selected for an immidiate mission to the SWS, while the rest are staioned in various food processing facilities at space centers throughout the world. Most of them however, are assigned to the SSPF for ground work.

### Training and assignment

Newly selected Skylab Workshop Station chefs then undergo basic astronaut training at ESA's European Astronaut Centre (in Cologne Germany) or the Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas. This last from 1 - 3 months. Recruits then attend training classes with full-scale mockup machinery of the cooking equipment in the real kitchen of the Skylab. They are then given tasks to assembly sample menus from at least 14 different cuisines, in less than a day. Once this training is successfully completed, NASA assigns the newly qualified chefs to the next available crew mission to the space station.

### Mission highlights

Once arriving aboard the Skylab, the chefs are stationed for a fixed space cooking contract (with a minumum duration of 367 days), and recieve an annual tax-free salary of $348,000.