This year marks exactly 50 years since the start of the first multi-seat spaceship “Sunrise” -1. From this the moment the astronauts embarking on a flight became with whom to break a piece of bread. In this case, the simple inhabitants left on Earth, it was always scary to find out what they actually eat conquerors of outer space.
Today you can taste the real food of astronauts, for example, in Memorial Museum of Cosmonautics at the All-Russian Exhibition Center. However, to completely to feel all the charms of a space meal, you must still take to Earth’s orbit because the process of eating in space quite complicated, but the simulator for ordinary inhabitants of the Earth is not yet created.
HE SAID: GO!
For half a century of space flights, the food of the astronauts passed a long a path of evolution no less complicated than perfecting the whole space technology in general. The first menu of the astronauts was quite meager. For example, Yuri Gagarin, despite the fact that he spent in space quite a bit of time, however, had on board full lunch. Soviet scientists prepared for him several dishes packed in special tubes, such as liquid pasta and chocolate sauce.
Photo from open sources
True, Yuri Gagarin only tasted food as experiment. The first ones who managed to fully dine in space, became German Titov, whose flight was fantastic for that time 25 hours. At first, he bit a glass of vegetable mashed soup, the liver pate was the second course, and the third was a glass of blackcurrant juice. In just a day of the second flight the USSR astronaut took food three times, but, by his own admission, stayed hungry!
Subsequently, beef was included in the menu of Soviet cosmonauts jellied tongue, pies with fish, Ukrainian borsch, entrecotes, fire cutlets, chicken, two dozen varieties of juices, fruit purees and vegetable sauces. Already by the 1980s, the diet astronauts consisted of more than 200 all kinds of items dishes.
American astronauts trying to catch up and overtake the Soviet space explorers, during flights, ate food in the form of small pieces of food, special powders and liquids. However similar meals consisting of freeze-dried foods scared did not like. Moreover, fear affected: how Will the astronaut react to eating in space?
True, John Glenn, an American who committed February 20, 1962 the first orbital flight under the flag of the United States, said that despite his fears, there’s nothing wrong with swallowing food in space, but compression of the throat muscles in zero gravity is almost no different from a similar process on Earth, the only thing noted as Western and domestic astronauts, sometimes going on significant distortion of the taste of products.
A photo from open sources
The first domestic food tubes weighed 165 grams, and the first Yuri Gagarin himself shot a sample of the products of a specialized plant. By the way, in space, in addition to those pasta and chocolate sauce, there were borsch, potatoes, cutlet and juices. Cause no one knew what food can the human body take painlessly in space. Gagarin reassured: “You can eat from the tubes!”
EVOLUTION OF THE SPACE DINING ROOM
Back in the early 1960s, the first food developers for astronauts asked a simple question: what criteria should it satisfy? It turned out just a few: save everything nutrients, fully absorbed by the body, be compact and have as little waste as possible.
It is not surprising that at first scientists came up with the idea of a miracle pill that would collect all the necessary human body nutrients. There it was! We could not invent such a pill, especially since astronauts urgently required normal human food.
As a result, in the first years of manned space exploration, the participants flights offered portable food. These were three-course dinners, each of which was sealed in a tube (similar to that in which holds the toothpaste). From the tube, the food was squeezed out by ourselves astronaut right in the mouth.
Interestingly, today each member of the cosmonaut corps, going into space, tastes many dishes. Each of them he estimates on a ten-point scale. The food that received the highest scores, getting ready for the flight, and the “laps” remain on The earth. Then a varied menu is prepared, designed for eight days after which the entire food cycle is repeated.
A photo from open sources
Astronauts feed like children four times in the allotted time. Typically, the menu includes: Borodino bread in the form of tiny bars (to avoid crumbs: mini bars are eaten in one bite), honey gingerbread, ham, pork in sweet and sour sauce, beef with mayonnaise, azu, quail, pike perch, chicken fried in jelly, cheese, sturgeon, cottage cheese, green cabbage soup and borsch, cutlets with mashed potatoes, strawberries, cookies, chocolate, tea and coffee.
At the same time, modern astronauts like to eat in Earth’s orbit Fresh fruits and vegetables. Most often, the choice falls on those products that grow in the homeland of the astronaut. The Americans prefer citrus fruits, while domestic conquerors Cosmos – native apples, tomatoes or onions. It got to the point that astronauts even celebrated holidays with national dishes. So, the Swede Christer Fuglesang was forbidden to take the baked into space meat. Instead, he met Christmas with dried venison on the table.
DINNER IS SERVED
However, it’s not enough to deliver food to orbit; cook correctly on Earth, and then be able to heat in space. How does this happen in practice? Products are first frozen until -50 degrees, and then, under vacuum, for 32 hours heated to +50. .. + 70 degrees. In this case, the ice does not turn into water, and instantly evaporates, retaining all the nutrient in the product substances that usually go away with water, significantly reducing volume and weight of each serving of space food.
It sounds amazing, but today porridge, canned meat and various mashed potatoes, once in space in thin metal cans aluminum, are an analogue of ordinary canned earth. Of astronauts use dried fruit and vegetable drinks juices.
A photo from open sources
Food is delivered into orbit in a small container on the lid. which must be attached an inventory of the products in it. The size of each “grocery set” is no more than a student’s portfolio Soviet times and contains a three-day diet one astronaut. Cans during meals are installed on the “kitchen table” in special sockets, where they first they warm up, and then the astronauts open them with ordinary can openers.
Meals are also made using ordinary spoons directly from cans. Certain difficulties are caused only by fluid intake. Package with beverage concentrate is attached to a special unit, which by sophisticated technology releases the necessary amount of water into it. The result is soup, mashed potatoes or juice. Their astronauts drink right from packages.
At the same time in space sharply. there is a problem of crumbs from cookies or bread that may get into the eye or cause breakage expensive spacecraft or orbital instruments stations, so they are destroyed using a special fan, built into the “kitchen table”.
A photo from open sources
There are other problems in space besides crumbs. So in zero gravity any liquid, including drunk by an astronaut, tends to rise up, thereby increasing the risk of nasal obstruction and swelling of the entire face. It’s hard for bones to hold back and make up for losses calcium, muscles atrophy, causing intestinal problems and teaching a heartbeat.
But the most unusual is the change in the growth of the astronaut during flight. Scientists have noticed that due to low blood pressure, acting on the spine of an astronaut during a flight, almost all of them, after returning home, gain in growth in 3-5 cm average
POWER PLANT
Of course, for the production of space food is necessary unique equipment. Today for Russia and the CIS countries “space food” is produced by only one enterprise. it Biryulevsky experimental plant PACXH, which is located in Leninsky district of the Moscow region. Factory management in numerous interviews have repeatedly claimed that the creation space food – an extremely complex task, requiring the involvement of the most modern technology.
Yes, and how could it be otherwise, because food sent to space, should take up relatively little space, save everything nutrients, to be sterile, and most importantly – to be stored for a long time. Today, astronauts are fed according to which a man in space must consume 3,200 daily kilocalories and a woman – 2,800.
Currently Biryulevsky production supplies products domestic space crews 80 percent. The remaining twenty is mainly canned fish and dishes. They are made at a similar plant in St. Petersburg.
So that the reader can appreciate the work “space chefs”, you can give a few figures: for the whole the history of manned space missions sent more than 80 tons products, developed 50 thousand diets, and the average space lunch today costs about 20 thousand rubles. And this is only the cost of producing lunch, and the cost of delivery space supply is considered, of course, separately.
Dmitry LAVOCHKIN
Water Time Russia Evolution
