What’s cooking with our journey to the Red Planet some time around 2030? Plenty.
Take space suits, for instance. They have to be designed to withstand the heat of a rocket traveling at 25,000 mph.
And then there’s the food. It’s crucial to the mission’s success.
Consider these out-of-this-world facts.
TO-GO ORDERS
Imagine having to pack more than 6,570 breakfasts, lunches, snacks and dinners all at once — enough meals to feed six people every day for more than three years. Imagine preparing all these meals with an allotment of3.2 pounds of food per person per day, about one-third less than the average American eats each day on Earth. Imagine that each dish needs to have a five-year shelf life. And imagine having to transport all the meals to a dining table55 million miles away, where cooking equipment will be rudimentary at best.
PIZZA? CHEESECAKE?
No and nope. Zero-gravity pizza can’t work because the crust would need to be preserved differently than the toppings. A cheesecake can’t survive the preservation process without turning hard.
MAC ‘N’ CHEESE
The dish has been served countless times on space shuttles and the International Space Station. After all, it’s comfort food. But not so fast. The see-through package isn’t impervious to moisture and oxygen, so the pasta could spoil before it can be eaten. Simple alternatives, like foil packages, are out of the question: They are too heavy.
FRUITS AND VEGGIES
Maybe. A team at Kennedy Space Center in Florida has been developing a domed chamber in which astronauts could raise crops like lettuce, tomatoes, carrots and green onions hydroponically.
MEAT THE FUTURE
Irradiation is used to make meat dishes safe to store at room temperature for up to two years.
