Famously, a corned-beef sandwich was smuggled aboard Gemini 3 by pilot John W. In the highly flammable, oxygen-rich environment of a space ship, no packaging or utensils can run the risk of creating a spark. Knives, for instance, pose a hazard an accidental puncture of equipment could be catastrophic. The first thing you have to realize about space, says Jennifer Levasseur, who curates the some-485 items of space food at the National Air and Space Museum, is that it changes everything about what you can and cannot eat. The good news is that, as the Smithsonian’s collection amply demonstrates, the history of feeding men and women in space is plenty fascinating without it. The astronauts, it seems, didn’t like the stuff. Freeze-dried ice cream did make an appearance on the Apollo 7 mission, in 1968, but was scratched from the space program soon after. Or, rather, I was eating what only very few astronauts ever ate (unless, of course, they too grew up visiting the museum gift shop). But astronaut ice cream came with the ultimate value-added, better than hot fudge or peanuts: I was eating what astronauts ate!Īs it turns out, I wasn’t. It had the consistency of Styrofoam and left a strange, slick film on the back of your teeth even at that age, if pressed, I would have had to admit that regular, frozen Earth ice cream was in every way superior. This was before freeze-dried ice cream had become standard museum gift-shop fare-obviously way before the advent of The highlight of a weekend in the nation’s capital was unwrapping that weirdly light packet, revealing the tricolored brick within. focuses less on my exposure to the splendid pageant of democracy, or soaking in the accumulated treasure of America’s cultural history but, rather, on a 3- by 3-inch foil-wrapped block of something called astronaut ice cream. You might notice the peaches or cinnamon apple wedges rehydrate as you eat them! They start out crispy and crunchy, and by time you've finished a slice it feels juicy and fresh.Surely I’m not the only one whose primary memory of childhood trips to Washington, D.C. Some freeze-dried food can be reconstituted by adding hot water, but our freeze-dried food, including our sweet vanilla ice cream, is better eaten as is! Or, if you don't like ice cream, our freeze-dried fruit is also delicious. This entire process can be repeated a few times until the water content of the food is approximately 1%. Ice turns directly to steam which is sucked out with the air. At this temperature and pressure, sublimation occurs. This freezer is usually around -40 ☌. A vacuum pump is then placed over the food, sucking out all the air and creating a low-pressure environment. The temperature is then slowly increased but only to around -35 ☌. The process starts by taking normal food (astronauts love ice cream!) and freezing it in a special industrial freezer, so it becomes very cold very fast. It's a fast and reliable process of making food safe to travel in space, or to improve the shelf life. Imagine an ice cube instantly becoming steam and floating away without ever forming a puddle, that's what happens when we freeze dry food. But how do they freeze-dry it?įreeze drying is a process of preservation that relies on sublimation – a solid turning into gas without turning into liquid first. Flavoursome and sweet, with the same yummy creamy taste as we enjoy on Earth, but with a crunchy meringue-like texture. If you're an astronaut bouncing around in the International Space Station, and you're overwhelmed by the urge for something sweet – what do you reach for? Freeze-dried ice cream or fruit of course! With it's low moisture content (and therefore less mess!) and high energy-to-mass ratio, our freeze-dried sweet treats are the perfect snack for astronauts, as well as hikers, adventurers and explorers.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |