What is the food of the astronauts

As the saying goes, people live on food, and even astronauts who leave the earth and go into space are inseparable from three meals a day. Of course, each country has its own characteristics of space food for astronauts, and today I will introduce you to some delicacies from space.

In the early days, astronauts ate various nutrient solutions in outer space, similar to toothpaste-like food, packaged in aluminum tubes, and made into minced meat, jam, etc. After development, astronauts can eat dehydrated freeze-dried food, rice, noodles, various dishes, fruits and vegetables, and add water to make a paste and eat. Now, astronauts can eat a variety of delicacies such as Sichuan cuisine and eight-treasure rice in space.

In order to save space on the spacecraft, astronauts must carry space food that is as lightweight, small, nutritious and debris-free as possible. The food must meet the requirements for physiological changes in astronauts under weightlessness conditions. Therefore, food should be aimed at the changes in human metabolism and physiological functions that may be caused by the weightless environment, including proteins, fats and various trace elements in food.

Although China's manned space missions are not long, and the changes in the physiological state of astronauts do not have high requirements for food ingredients, they are all designed for long-term flights.

In the weightless environment of space, food will float around like a human, and it is not easy to eat in your mouth. In order to facilitate meals, the United States and the former Soviet Union initially made all the food of astronauts into "paste", and then packed it like toothpaste, and when eating, they squeezed it into their mouths with "toothpaste mouths", and there was no taste at all.

According to Su Shuangning, commander-in-chief and chief designer of the astronaut system of China's manned space project, China's aerospace food is usually made into a mouthful of rectangles, spherical and square, such as meat pieces, fish pieces, dim sum pieces, etc., the surface is coated with a layer of edible protective film, and the astronauts eat a piece of food, which is convenient and concise, and will not fall off the crumbs, which can avoid food crumbs scattered and floating in the cabin.

China has a special scientific research institute to study space food, in addition to the reasonable combination of food nutrition, but also according to the dietary characteristics of Chinese, developed a lot of space food with "Chinese characteristics", such as kung pao chicken, fish fragrant shredded meat, and even noodles.

Don't underestimate these home-cooked dishes, their ** are more expensive than the big meals on earth. Each kilogram of items costs about $10,000 to launch, and an astronaut eats about 1 to 2 kilograms of food a day, which costs about $10,000 to $20,000. In order to save launch costs, many space foods have been dehydrated.

A watery pineapple, after dehydration, becomes like a yellow biscuit, a thin slice. After being brought into space, it is rehydrated by astronauts before being consumed. In this way, after a while, the "yellow biscuit" turned into a watery pineapple again, but it tasted a little strange.

After continuous improvement, astronauts now eat in space very much like that, the cutlery can be fixed to the table, the food is slightly sticky, so that it does not fly off the plate, and it looks similar to that on Earth.

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Due to the special weightless environment in space, it is impossible for astronauts to eat normally and easily like people living on Earth. There are certain peculiarities in the nutrition, preparation and ** of space food, as well as the way of eating astronauts. When humans first went into space in the 60s of the 20th century, due to technical limitations and safety concerns, astronauts were only given paste-like semi-fluid food, which they squeezed in their mouths like toothpaste.

The first in the United States"Toothpaste"It's applesauce, and in Russia it's cabbage soup.

But in weightlessness, astronauts can't shed enough saliva, and their sense of taste is dull, so toothpaste-like food seriously affects their appetite. With the advancement of science and technology, space food has been greatly improved. At present, there are many types of aerospace food, which are divided into different categories such as staple food, non-staple food, ready-to-eat food, beverages, condiments, and functional foods.

Each country has also developed special food for its astronauts to send into space. In the case of China's Tiangong-2, astronauts on the space station can eat it"Normal"meals, three times a day. Breakfast includes porridge, rice cakes, braised eggs, cabbage and mango juice.

Both lunch and dinner are equipped with 2 main courses, 3 dishes, a side dish, a canned fruit, and a soup. These dishes include snow cabbage rabbit, pine nut corn, braised bamboo shoots in oil, shredded pork with fish flavor, spicy peanuts, beef in sauce, and more.

Due to weightlessness, astronauts' muscles are prone to atrophy, such as fish-flavored shredded pork, sauced beef and other foods are rich in protein, which can promote the synthesis of body muscles, and these foods taste very good, and can also promote astronauts' appetite. In addition to the main meal, astronauts can eat more snacks, including almonds, chocolate, cookies, chicken wings, yogurt and even ice cream. , beverages, freeze-dried beverage mixtures (coffee or tea) or flavored beverages (lemonade or orange juice) in vacuum-sealed beverage bags.

Coffee and tea can be sweetened with cream powder or sugar depending on personal taste. There will also be empty drink bags for drinking water. Fresh food, fresh fruits, vegetables and tortillas on cargo ships.

These foods spoil quickly and need to be consumed within two days of arrival. These foods can provide psychological support to astronauts on long-term missions, irradiate meat and canned food, sterilize it with ionizing radiation, and prevent spoilage. Semi-dry foods, which have some moisture but not enough to cause immediate spoilage, such as sausages and beef jerky.

Ordinary foods, foods sold in supermarkets, such as nuts, crackers, and cereal bars, can be eaten as is.

eat porridge, rice cakes, braised egg rolls and mango juice in space; Their food is only a mushy semi-fluid food that is squeezed in their mouths like toothpaste, but now the astronauts' food has improved and normal meals can be eaten.

There is almost no difference between the food they eat and the earth, such as biscuits, chocolate, bread, and sausages, but the nutritional value is relatively high, and the things they eat are generally prepared in advance by nutritionists. Nutritionally balanced, so far, there are about 100 kinds of food.

The things they eat are not very different from those on the ground, such as biscuits, bread, ham sausages, and then there are more fresh fruits and vegetables, and there will be room for food preservation, and they have eaten mapo tofu rice bowls in space before.

They usually eat some fruits or some compressed biscuits in space, and the food they eat is special, and these foods can overcome environmental problems.

Astronauts can eat a variety of delicacies in space, such as sausage pies, spicy grilled fish, brioche bread, tempeh broth, tuna salad, biscuits, chocolate, yogurt, preserved fruits, juices, and more.

The astronauts' food is rich and colorful, from the initial dozen to more than 100. Astronauts generally eat 4 meals a day, and the recipes are not repeated during the week.

However, astronauts can't eat as much as they want. They must follow the recipes prepared for them by the ground nutritionist. Space food is dehydrated, and the food can be put into a bowl-shaped container before eating, and then a certain amount of water can be filled into the container with a syringe, and then put it in the oven to heat.

A meal can be "cooked" in no more than half an hour.

Summary. Food eaten by astronauts**.

Earth eats breakfast, space eats dinner, what do you find from this sentence?

Some astronauts feel this way, and what they think is delicious on Earth is not so delicious in space. Does weightlessness affect the sense of taste? There is no scientific determination for this.

However, zero gravity can cause cerebral congestion which can affect the sense of taste, similar to eating without taste after a cold.

There are about 100 kinds of food that astronauts eat in space, including bread, chocolate, beef, milk, sausages, preserved fruits, juices and other foods. Astronauts generally eat 4 meals a day, and the recipes are not repeated during the week. The food that astronauts eat is not ordinary vegetables and fruits, they are specially processed compressed bricks or toothpaste tubes, which can be restored to their original shape after adding a certain percentage of water.

Space food has a high nutritional value, but they must follow the recipes prepared for them by a ground nutritionist.

Space food is generally dehydrated food, and before eating, you need to put the food in a container, fill a certain amount of water into the container with a syringe, and then put it in the oven to heat.

Astronauts can't talk while eating, because talking while eating will cause the chewed food in their mouths to fly out of their mouths and float in the dining room or living cabin, and astronauts will easily choke into their lungs if they don't pay attention to inhaling into their noses.