How NASA Astronauts Cook, and Eat, in Space

This Sunday, “CBS Sunday Morning” will broadcast my report on NASA’s newest mission, One Year in Space.

On March 27, astronaut Scott Kelly will lift off for the International Space Station, where he’ll spend an entire year, studying the long-term effects of life in space. That’s much longer than his six-month visit in 2010—in fact, it will be a new American record.

Our report covers all the adjustments he’ll have to make in space—physical, psychological, mental—including the challenge of eating in space.

I spent an amazing afternoon with Vickie Kloeris, manager of space food systems, discussing how you eat in space, why true cooking is impossible (you don’t want open flame in your space station), and how zero gravity makes food float away from your plate or your spoon.

On TV, you don’t have a lot of time to tell the story. So CBS said I could share the transcript with you as a Yahoo Food exclusive. Read on—I think you’ll find what Vickie has to say absolutely fascinating.

Vickie Kloeris and David Pogue test astronaut food.

David Pogue: We, the public, think, “Oh, there’s those food sticks, there’s Tang, and there’s freeze dried ice cream.” Is that it?

Vickie Kloeris: Well, we do still supply Tang!

DP: Really?

VK: We use a lotta commercial off-the-shelf powered beverages, and Tang happens to be one of those. The freeze-dried ice cream, not so much. (LAUGH) It’s only actually flown one time, to my knowledge. And that was back during the Apollo program.

DP: Understandable. [Picks up a plastic pouch] So instead, they’re eating this appetizing-looking…

VK: Okay. Yes, this is a thermostabilized product. So this is just like canned products on your shelf at home, except it’s in a pouch. It weighs a lot less than the metal cans. And because of its shape, it’s a lot more efficient to stow in a container on the Space Station.

DP: And thermostabilized means it’ll keep?

VK: It will last a long time at room temperature without any refrigeration.

DP: And what’s in this particular one?

VK: This one is beef ravioli. All they gotta do is warm it up. So they have a food warmer on the space station. It kinda likes look like a metal briefcase. They open it up. It’s got a hot plate down the center. Load up the pouches, close it up, plug it in. 25, 30 minutes, they’ve got food that’s warmed up and ready to eat.

We also have a large category of products that are freeze dried. So this happens to be scrambled eggs… this one is our shrimp cocktail. The freeze-dried products, they’re gonna inject water through the top of this package. And then once the food is nice, and wet, and moist, they cut the package open with their scissors and eat out of the package with a fork or a spoon.

They have to learn not to pile up a lot of food on the utensils. If they get too much on there, there won’t be adequate surface tension to hold it in place—

DP: And it’ll scatter, right?

VK: It’ll tend to scatter, yeah. (LAUGH)

DP: And how close is that goin’ to taste to scrambled eggs?

VK: Flavor-wise, very close. Texture? A little bit different. Eggs probably won’t be that far off from the texture you’d expect. But if you like crisp, al dente vegetables, you’re really not gonna get those in a freeze dried vegetable. It’s gonna be pretty soft by the time you rehydrate it.

DP: And what tend to be the hits?

VK: Historically, one of our most popular items has been our shrimp cocktail. It’s freeze-dried shrimp. It’s got a powdered sauce in there. It’s tomato based, with horseradish. A lot of the crew members say they like things with kick when they’re on orbit. They like the spiciness.

DP: Why is that?

VK: The way that we perceive the taste of the food, a huge part of it is the smell. But when you’re in microgravity, things interfere with your ability to get aroma from the food.

When they first go into orbit, a fluid shift occurs; all the fluid shifts to the upper part of their bodies—so they’re congested, and that interferes with their ability to taste the food.

They’re also eating out of packages rather than off of a plate, which limits the amount of aroma they’re getting.

So we get a lotta feedback that they feel like their taste buds are somewhat dulled on orbit, and that’s why things with a little spice in it are popular.

DP: Tabasco sauce?

VK: Tabasco sauce, Sriracha sauce, yeah. Very popular on orbit.

DP: And can a crew member eat all the food he or she wants?

VK: No, we control the usage rate. And if they exceed that rate, then they’re actually robbing the next crew of food. (LAUGH) So before they can exceed that rate, they have to get permission.

DP: So it would be like, “Houston, we have the munchies.”

VK: Yes. Exactly.

DP: Whose food is better: Russians or ours? You can say it.

VK: Well, it depends on who you talk to. (LAUGH) When we started out, our U.S. crew members were like, “Yeah, I don’t want any of that Russian food.”

And the Russians would come to our taste panels to try our products. And most of the products they wouldn’t even try. It was so culturally different than what they were used to, you know? But they quickly figured out that each side has stuff that is very desirable. And it adds variety by being able to get access to both food systems.

DP: Is there any alcohol on the space station?

VK: Not legally. (LAUGHTER)

DP: And how about carbonated drinks?

VK: The thing about carbonation in microgravity in your diet is…when you think about it, this valve up here [gestures to her throat] is not a true closure. And so on earth when we burp, it’s gonna be a dry burp. But when you burp in microgravity, it may not necessarily be a dry burp. Everything’s gonna be floatin’ high in your stomach. And so burping might not be a desirous thing in microgravity.

DP: Now and then, you’ll hear an interview with an astronaut who refers to, “I was doing some cooking,” as though there was some improvisation.

VK: There really isn’t a way to cook on the space station. Because nothing they have gets hot enough to really cook anything. 170, 180 Fahrenheit is as hot as it gets. Really, all they’re doing is they’re warming them or adding water or hot water to them.

Now, all that said, we did have one of the astronauts—it was Sandy Magnus, actually. She actually did some things where she combined products together.
Like, she was up there for the Super Bowl. She made some special dips and things for them. She used the food warmer.

The Russians often send raw garlic. Well, she actually took the garlic and warmed it multiple times in the food warmer, and actually came up with roasted garlic by heating it over and over again.

Before a mission, each astronaut sits down to choose what he’ll want to eat during the mission; the food department offers him tasting sessions, so he can sample the options. At this point, Vickie invited me to a long table, where she had arrayed some food samples for me to try.

So normally, when we do food sessions for the astronauts, you’re gonna let them sample between 40 and 60 items—

DP: At one seating? Wow.

VK: They’re just taking a taste of everything. We get only a limited amount of time with them.

DP: And what’s the total list of possible foods?

Freeze-dried foods at NASA.

VK: There’s about 200 foods and beverages that we keep in stock all the time. They can request commercial items for their bonus containers as well. [Each astronaut gets a “bonus box” of favorite foods just for him or her.]

DP: OK, Vickie… what’s for dinner?

VK: Okay, so let’s start off with this: crawfish etouffée. In orbit, they would hold the pouch this way. They would cut with their scissors and make a hole into the pouch, peel it back so it would be like this. And they would make a slit. And then they would eat out of the pouch.

DP: So not only are you losing some of the aroma, but you’re also losing a lotta the visual!

VK: Oh, a lotta the visual is gone, yes.

DP: [tasting the crawfish] Hm. The texture’s really good. May I be frank?

VK: Yes, absolutely.

DP: It needs some spicing.

VK: Right. We don’t want them to have too much sodium in their diets. And unfortunately, condiments are loaded with sodium.

DP: And why don’t you want them to have sodium?

VK: Well, there’s a couple of things. We’ve known for a very long time that sodium exacerbated bone loss. And that wasn’t as huge a big deal, because when they come back, they get that bone loss back.

But now that we’ve had crews on station for a long, long time, we’re beginning to see some crew members come back with changes in vision. These are permanent changes in vision. We’re not talking blindness, but needing glasses when they didn’t, or needing stronger glasses. They traced that back to increased intracranial pressure on orbit. And a lot of sodium can make that worse.

That became a really big issue. So we reformulated many of our products a few years ago to reduce the sodium content even further, because the vision thing was not reversible.

DP: Oh, wow.

VK: Okay, so next…freeze-dried macaroni and cheese.

DP: [tasting] Now that works. Good formulation.

VK: Okay, and next: Sweet and sour chicken. This is a freeze-dried entrée. There you go.

DP: Okay. [tasting] Hmmm. That’s funny. You’re right, the flavor is there. It’s just the texture’s a little off.

VK: Yeah, the texture’s gonna be different because of the freeze drying process.

Okay, now comes spaghetti with meat sauce, a classic.

DP: [tasting] That’s really good. Like mom used to make.

VK: Yeah… (LAUGHTER) comfort food.

DP: Kids would do well on the space station because of the mac and cheese and the spaghetti.

VK: Okay, now we have red beans and rice.

DP: Wow. [tasting] Needs salt. (LAUGHTER) But it is good.

VK: Okay. So now, a couple of desserts. We’re gonna start off, fresh off the shelf, shortbread cookies.

DP: These did not need rehydrification?

VK: No. When we choose commercial products, we try to choose them of a size—cookies and crackers—that they can put the whole thing in their mouth at once. Because you bite into ‘em—

DP: Crumbs!

VK: Without gravity, that could be a mess.

Finally, this is one of the desserts that we developed that crew members could warm up. From a psychological perspective, we thought that that would be a really good addition. It’s a cran-apple dessert.

DP: Thank you. [tasting] Mmmmm!

VK: (LAUGH) Pretty good.

DP: I’d like the recipe for that!

VK: We can provide that.

DP: So, it’s all better than camp food. It’s better than cafeteria food. Some of it’s better than frozen microwaveable food.

VK: Some of it. Not all of it.

DP: But considering the limitations that you have, I mean, you’ve done an amazing job.

VK: Yeah, we get compliments. We get some complaints, but we get compliments, too.

DP: Especially when they eat the apple dessert.