Daniel and Kelly’s Extraordinary Universe - How to keep astronauts fed and happy

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

Daniel and Kelly discuss the often less-than-delicious history of food in space. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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and we break bread with the people that we hold deer. But bringing food with us when we travel far from home to explore remote environments is really hard. Before we were sending astronauts to space, humans were sailing the open seas and exploring Earth's frozen poles. And initially, we didn't have the whole food thing figured out really well. During the age of sail, which ran from like 1570 to 1860-ish, a disease called scurvy was a huge problem. We didn't really understand at the time that our bodies needed vitamin C, and that vitamin C came from fresh stuff like fruits and vegetables. I've seen reports that 2 million sailors died of scurvy during this time, and that number seems kind of hard to believe, but I guess it's over 300 years and there were loads of people sailing at the time, but this is a horrible way to die.

Without vitamin C, your connective tissues degenerate, your gums start to bleed, your teeth wobble and fall out, wounds that had healed a long time ago, like magically reopen and start bleeding again, You get lethargic, you get weakness, and it's a slow, miserable death. But eventually we figured out that humans need vitamin C, and vitamin C comes from fresh stuff. But even when you have the right foods, it can be hard to pack the foods right. During the Franklin Expedition, which was a British expedition that left in 1845 to explore the Arctic, there was lead lining in the cans that stored their food, and that appears to have given some of the crew lead poisoning. And even when you do figure out how to pack the food in a way, that doesn't kill the crew, often the food is not super tasty because shelf-stable food is just

not always super delicious. So a common staple on polar expeditions was called Pemmican, and this super shelf-stable food was made out of animal fat mixed with dried meat and dried berries. And yes, it's exceptionally shelf-stable, so nice to pack on long expeditions far from the grocery store, but it is not exceptionally delicious. Complaints about pemmican include that it stops you up, which sounds rather unpleasant, it tastes awful and it generally leaves the consumer greasy. So like that animal fat gets on your clothes, it gets in your hair, and like in an environment

where it's really hard to take a good shower, that grease kind of builds up over time and is very unpleasant. But tasty food is so important on difficult journeys. On polar expeditions, they save special foods for like holidays as a lot of. morale boost and has ways to keep people going. The best stuff was saved for like Christmas dinners so that they could all look forward to that and celebrate. And if morale was getting low, they would make up a holiday and pull out the chocolate that

they had stored for special occasions to try to perk everybody up and keep them going. So as you may know, I'm really interested in what life is going to be like as we set out to settle Mars. And so I've thought a fair bit about what food has been like so far in space and what food might be like when we finally move to Mars? You know, how are we going to grow it? How are we going to make it? How are we going to make sure we have enough in that it's delicious? But Mars is going to have its own challenges that are unique to human history that we haven't really experienced yet. So, for example, on polar expeditions when food ran low, there was often a

chance that you could kill a polar bear or a penguin or some fish or a turtle and, you know, extend your food supply in that way. And sadly, it was also pretty common to kill the dogs that we're pulling the sleighs when you ran out of food so that you could eat them as well. But unless there are some massive surprises on Mars, there's not going to be Martian polar bears that we can use as backup when we get up there. So this is the first of a two-part series on food in space. First, we're going to explore the history of food in space and some of the challenges that had to be overcome to get shelf-stable food to be safe and delicious for our astronauts.

And then in episode two, we're going to take a look at the future of food in space and what farmers might be up to when we finally settle Mars. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe. Hi, I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'm pretty persnickety about what I eat. I'm Kelly Wiener-Smith. I study parasites, and I love phyllic. food and if you ask me ahead of time i will try to not talk about the parasites that are in your food if you take me out to dinner all right kelly well i have a really important question for you that might shape the entire future of our friendship oh oh high stakes all right what's up high stakes

yes how do you feel about dark chocolate versus white chocolate think carefully so when i was a kid i hated white chocolate but as an adult my tastes have matured i still prefer dark chocolate but I like white chocolate too. All right. Are we still good or is it over for our friendship now? Borderline. Borderline. You threw a bone to dark chocolate there, but I will not even admit white chocolate into the category of chocolate. I will admit it can be tasty in moments, but to me, it doesn't belong in the same sentence as actual chocolate. Is it made from cacao beans? Or is there something about white chocolate that I don't know? It's only the butter. It has no actual cocoa in it. Hmm. I mean, I don't get too worked up about terminology and jargon. I just know what's delicious and what's not. But sure, I'll go with it. White chocolate, I'm kicking you to the curb. It's just okay.

Thank you. And welcome to the podcast, Daniel and Kelly's extraordinary universe in which we talk about everything that's tasty and amazing and wonderful in this universe. We take a big bite out of it and try to make it all digestible to you. Everything from the tiniest little particles. to the biggest planets and the swirling galaxies of this incredible, extraordinary universe. Delicious. Well, on today's show, we are talking about food in space, which I spent so much time reading about when we were working on a city on Mars. And there are so many fun stories about food that's gone to space that some people love and some people hate that I was like, Daniel, let's start doing two-part episodes because I have so much to say about food.

And you were like, fine, I'll let you talk about food. But we like to hear what other people have to say about food, too. So you went out to the campus of UC Irvine and accosted people with your microphone and asked them questions about food and space. That's right. I asked folks, what were the big challenges to keeping astronauts fed? If you would like to contribute to answers for the podcast, please write to us to questions at danielandkelly.org.

We'd love to hear your voice and include your answers in this segment of the podcast. When you send us an email, just say, hey, I want to give you my opinion on stuff, and we'll send you the question that we're working on at the moment, and you'll just send us an audio file with your answer. Easy peasy. And then you can impress all of your friends by having your voice on our podcast. Whoop. All right, let's hear what we came up with this week.

Probably getting the food up there, I would imagine. I think every pound of material that you bring up costs an enormous amount of money. Well, I was supposed that under different gravitational... circumstances and you need to take care of your muscles and your bones in such a way that when you get back to earth things might feel heavier than you're used to them feeling like in a space station for instance yeah i think we can probably engineer our way through it but we just need to let me have sunlight fiber fiber okay oh that's a good one i think i agree fiber Okay, fiber, all right.

Keeping the food from not perishing, like bacteria, going spoiled. You need a lot of it, and I can't go bad. Wait, can you have a fridge in space? Oh, that helps. I mean, our society's gotten so good at processed food that we've got tons of stuff that's like shelf stable for decades, so that's not the issue. I'm sure we'll have plenty of ways to make food.

We'll have to really make sure that there's good vitamins in there and fiber. diamonds in there and fiber and so forth. But I guess the real problem will be just the boredom. Like it will be hard for the astronauts to live that way for so long. And man, just what they would do for a lime. Well, Daniel, these were some good answers. What do you think is the major challenge for keeping astronauts fed? I agree with the answers that are concerned about boredom.

Because, you know, food is important. Sometimes I look forward to dinner, you know. Maybe that's because I only eat one meal a day. But when I sit down to eat that meal, I'm like, Mmm, yum. I'm going to enjoy this. And so if you're working hard, you're out there in space and space is like not always that comfortable or forgiving, then you got to make sure your meals are something you can enjoy. Well, I think our friendship's on the line again. You eat one meal a day. Are you like my husband who's like, oh, I forgot to have breakfast? And I'm like, people rate you and tell you how smart you are. How did you forget to have breakfast? You only eat at dinner? No, I don't know if this makes me dumber or smarter than your husband, but I only eat when the sun goes down. I'm on the vampire. diet. Why? I don't understand. I love the act of chewing on food so much. I couldn't only do it

after the sun goes down. Why only after the sun goes down? It's not because I'm actually a vampire. Don't worry about it. Your curtains open behind you. You'd be a goner. But breakfast and lunch, I feel like they interfere with the flow of the day. You know, this way I have a whole day. The rest of humanity has to like pack food and take it with them. It's a hassle. Everybody's like spending hours in the morning preparing their lunch and bringing it with them. Oh, it spilled in my backpack. And now I've got to take a break. I just have like a. a nice whole day. And then at the end of it, I get a meal. It's wonderful. You look totally dumbfounded over there. I don't know how to process this. But you know, I went through a similar

thought process when I was younger trying to decide if I was going to learn how to do makeup and then spend time putting it on every day. And I was like, well, by the time I'm like 90, that would have taken like one and a half years of my life. And I just don't think it's worth it. So I'm not going to do it. But I just can't imagine making that same decision about food. Well, you know, eating at home is the best because then you get to prepare the food the way you like it, you have all of your ingredients. This is one reason that like airplane food has always been terrible, right? Because it's got to be stored and transported. Eating lunch when you're bringing your food with you or you got to find some restaurant or something, it's a big hassle

and it's never as good as something you could have at home. So I try to save that up and enjoy it at home. That's similar to the challenge of today's episode, right? How do you prepare food? Bring it to space. Keep it healthy. Keep it fresh. Keep it good for the astronauts. Yeah. So actually when we first started going to space. It was moderately easy. So the missions were short. The very first trip to space when Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin went up in 1961. Most of the cosmonauts were already fighter pilots. And there was already food figured out for fighter pilots. So just like cosmonauts, they go up there in these like pressurized suits with these awkward helmets and there's all the stuff they need to pay attention to. So you can't be like opening up something complicated

and applying catch up. It needs to be something that you get the calories in there as fast as you can. And so for fighter pilots, they had already figured out these, like, toothpaste-shaped tubes. Ugh. So it was bad. You're telling me the first space food was as bad as fighter pilot food, which sounds terrible. Yeah, it was bad. The first foods eaten in space were a tube of meat, maybe two tubes of meat, followed by a tube of chocolate for dessert. So pretty gross. Was that the first food eaten by humans? Or did they send up any food with a monkey or with the dog that they sent into space? Yeah, so Lika and Belka and Strilka, those were dogs that were sent up to space. They were sent up with food.

I think the food was in a jelly sort of thing to kind of hold everything together so that it wouldn't float apart. So also kibbles and gelatin. I guarantee those dogs ate that thing up before the thing even got off the ground. Yeah, because dogs are gross. I don't think they had any trouble getting them to eat their food. But yeah, so you're right. First food that humans ate in space. Yurigigarin, he seemed like he was a pretty like chill, easygoing guys.

He was happy with the food. He was happy with the flight. Life was great. The next guy who went up, Germontitov, he threw up. And, you know, he was also great, but he puked. That is the first case of a human getting space adaptation sickness. Oh, wait, what is space adaptation sickness? Is that just like, hey, this tube of food is not really food?

Or is it something to do with actually being out in space? It's something to do with actually being out in space. So part of how we have our sense of balance is that our ears have like some fluid in them and some hairs based on what the fluids are doing to those hairs that kind of tells us how our body is oriented and you know we just have various ways that our body uses to figure out like where we are and what we're doing that depend on gravity and so we don't actually understand space adaptation sickness super well but we know that when you go up in space sometimes it turns your stomach some people are fine some people are very much not fine and they puke and some people get over it

fast some people take a few days on sky lab they didn't want to admit that one One of the guys puked, and so he puked, and then he threw it away, and they tried to pretend it didn't happen, and then they got caught. They recorded their conversation because everything in space is recorded. But anyway, so it's a bit of a point of pride if you go to space and you don't yak, but I think a lot of people do yak. That and on the parabolic flights. Well, I feel bad for Cosmonautita because he is a first in human history, right?

He's the first person to yak in space, but nobody knows his name. It's hard being second. I think Buzz Aldrin was really mad that Neil Armstrong was going to go out. first because he knew that the first person to go out, you're going to remember that person's name before you remember the second person's name. Yeah, but Titov was the first to do something, at least, right? The first space yak? Like, that's a thing, right? That should be in the books. Yeah, but you know, not all firsts need to go down in history. Like, I'm the first weiner-Smith because my paperwork got processed first, but no one cares. Not all first need to be

celebrated. But so that things got better pretty quick. So like those tubes, as you noted, it's kind of gross and not like satisfying and fun to eat pastes from a tube. And so during Gemini and Apollo, they were going to be on there for longer. So they were trying to figure out some options that would be more exciting. But there's a lot of problems to solve. So like, okay, if you're going to send astronauts to the moon, they've got enough stuff to worry about without getting like food sickness. And so you need to make sure that the food is sterile and it's not going to give them food poisoning.

They're already worried about space adaptation sickness. You don't have refrigerators or freezers or stoves. at least not on Apollo or Gemini. ISS now has a freezer. They got one in 2020, but those things are energetically expensive and heavy. You also need to make the food light. So on Apollo, they freeze dried a bunch of stuff.

So essentially you freeze it, and then you heat it up in a vacuum to try to get all the water out, and now it weighs less. And the fuel cells on Apollo produced water as sort of a byproduct of the process where they were making power, and you'd use that water to rehydrate your food.

Apparently it had a little bit of a funky taste, which isn't ideal, but it's saved on mass. But is it a challenge to make shelf-sable food that's going to be good for days or weeks? One of our listener comments was noting that we are pretty good at making processed food these days. Yeah, we're pretty good at making processed food, but a lot of that processed food isn't lasagna that's good for nine months. The two weeks, so like the longest trip to the moon, it was like two or three weeks or something. So we're pretty good. And actually, they worked with Pillsbury because Pillsbury makes shes. shelf stable foods. And so they created some shelf stable foods for the Apollo program. So yeah,

it's not too hard to make it for a couple weeks. When you get to the ISS era and when you start to think about Mars, it gets way more complicated. But during the Apollo era, it was pretty straightforward. So they did a lot of this freeze drying or they do like what's called intermediate moisture foods, which are essentially like M&Ms, they've got some moisture in them, but they're shelf stable. So we're going to send those. Man, food chemists have the grossest names for things. You know, intermediate moisture foods. That does not sound like something I want to eat. eat at all. No, you feel like you should match them up with like chefs or something and like everything should be named something that could go on a menu. Well, and since I'm a biologist and we

managed to make it almost 15 minutes into the episode, it's time to talk about poop. All right. So the Apollo and the Gemini capsules were really small. Like imagine being in a van with like two or three people and there's no cordoned off spaces where you can get privacy. Right. Yeah. And so when you need to poop, you need to just be like, turn around guys, here it comes. And I'm sure they can smell it. It's a small space. And so the foods, they tried to make the foods, quote, low residue, which essentially means not a lot of fiber.

And there were actually some astronauts who would try to go their whole mission without pooping. Pooping was not just embarrassing, but like unpleasant. So they had these little baggies with an adhesive at the top that you would use the adhesive to stick to your heinie. Sorry about all the hand motions that you can see that no one else can see. Because it sounds like you're implying. that gravity is an important part of this human process. Yeah, yep.

And so that it's substantially different when you're out there floating. The stuff doesn't just get squeezed out. You're saying like it's got to get pulled out. Like every time I'm sitting on the toilet, you're saying the Earth is doing a significant amount of work on me. Yes, you should thank the Earth every morning or whatever. I know we're all very regular or whatever you should say. Thank you, Earth, for assisting me in this process.

It's a partnership, really. Right. So because things don't go in the direction it's supposed to, there's a finger cot in the bag to help you push things in the right direction. Okay. Oh, nobody wants to see that hand gesture that color is made. I'm so sorry, Daniel. I can't help it.

So anyway, it's gross. So Frank Borman, he was supposed to spend two weeks orbiting the earth with Jim Lovell, and he made it eight days. Maybe it was nine days. He was going to try to not poop at all. And at one point, I guess he turned to Jim Lovell and said, well, this is it, Jim. And Jim was like, you got five days left. But anyway, he couldn't make it.

Well, let me ask you, as a biologist, how long can a human go without producing number two and still be healthy. I mean, eight days does not sound healthy. No, it does not sound healthy. I don't know. There are consequences. Like, I've heard of people passing out. I've visited the Mooter Museum in Philadelphia and got my picture taken next to the mega colon, which was the colon from someone who just was not regular enough. But anyway, I don't know the answer exactly, but you should not eat too many low residue foods. Well, according to my rapid Googling, the record is 45 days. But you don't get a trophy at the end. No. No, that's another first that history is not going to remember, apparently. So we've talked a bit about the kinds of foods that they came up with. So you'd

freeze dry for the Gemini missions. All they had to rehydrate the food was cold water. And it was considered this like huge upgrade in the Apollo mission when you could rehydrate your food and it was a little bit warm. And so like imagine eating rehydrated sort of lukewarm food for two weeks. Not fun. And so we're back in the 60s. still, right? What kind of technology do we have now that they didn't have then? Like, they had microwaves in the 60s? I don't know if they had microwaves in the 60s, but I don't think they have microwaves on the ISS now, even. I think they use like a little convection oven that heats things up, but not even that much. And then they also have another hot water nozzle to rehydrate their food

because these freeze-dried foods are still going to space. Well, I guess that makes sense. If you're pulling most of the water out of this, then a microwave is not going to work on it because a microwave mostly heats the water in the food because the resonance of those electromagnetic waves excites the water molecules. So if you put something dry into a microwave, it doesn't really get heated up very effectively. Microwaves were invented in the 60s, and I think they were commercially available in the mid-60s. But then it doesn't make sense to include them in space anyway. Good time for humanity. I like microwaves. One of the other things that they had were these cubes that were covered in like an oil. So you don't want crumbs in space.

You know, everything floats when you're in space. And so if you've got crumbs, they can, like, get into the electrical equipment and they can cause shorts. And John Young got into a ton of trouble because he snuck a corn beef sandwich onto one of his flights. How do you sneak a corn beef sandwich? Like, do I want to ask where he was hiding it? I don't know where he snuck his in particular. But I do know that aboard MIR, Cosmonauts have a tradition where when they're on their way out for launch, they get out of the van that's bringing them to bike and where the rockets are going to take off

and they pee on the tire because that's what Yuri Gagarin did because it was like his last chance to like take off the spacesuit. And so that is supposed to be a time when people sort of squirrel away items that they're maybe not supposed to have but they want to take on anyway.

And so little bottles of liquor have been brought on to the International Space Station by storing them in your spacesuit when you like go out to take your pee. Somebody slipped to a cornmeal sandwich while you're getting your suit on. I don't understand how this works. I don't know either. He got in a lot of trouble.

like literally there was a congressional hearing because if the crumbs from his sandwich had messed up that mission can you imagine like how much taxpayer money would have been flushed down the toilet the most expensive corned beef sandwich in history exactly yes right right and this was part of the cold war can you imagine if we had lost the cold war over a corn beef sandwich anyway steaks were high steaks were high nice oh i didn't even oh that was so great and i didn't even know i was doing it literally corn beef sandwich in space is steaks are high That pun works in so many levels. I'm so clever, and I don't even know it. All right. But you know what? So I think we should leave the audience on tender hooks for a second. We are going to do a little bit of myth-busting about food and space when we get back from the commercials. So finish that corned beef sandwich, everybody.

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All right, so Daniel, how many times do you think that freeze dried astronaut ice cream that gets sold at all of the like air and space museums how many times has that gone to space oh man i mean imagine you want to send something yummy with the astronauts and you want to send something light i don't know why you wouldn't send it every single time i'm going to guess every single time they go to space they get ice cream they deserve it i think you're probably playing along with me but that's great i love it it's never gone to space what no i mean one it's awful like only not smart children buy it Have you ever opened up those bags?

Like, it's all little particles that sort of go floating out and make a giant mess. I mean, like, even in gravity, those things make a gigantic mess. I loved astronaut ice cream. I can't believe you're down on it. Every time we went to the planetarium or whatever, I got astronaut ice cream. It was such a treat. And like, okay, it's not as good as real ice cream, but it made me feel like an astronaut. I did not realize how much conflicts this food episode was going to cause between the two of us.

I hate that stuff. But fine, good for you. A dairy-based food cube has flown, but not this freeze-dried ice cream. So what's the origin of it? Is it just all marketing? Yeah, it worked on you. It actually did work on me. Not only did I buy it, but I enjoyed it more because I believed it had been in space.

So yeah, it absolutely worked. All right. Well, great. There's a market for everything. All right. All right. Well, what about Tang? Are you going to tell me the Tang was never enjoyed by astronauts?

Well, I mean, maybe it was enjoyed by astronauts, but it wasn't made for astronauts. Often when I'm giving talks about space and I go into my like negative Nelly speech about, you know, people say we should go to space for this reason, but that's a bad reason. People will always say, but like, oh, but what about all the spinoff technologies? Like, we wouldn't have Tang if it wasn't for space. I can't tell you how many times I've heard this. That's their go-to, not like Velcro or, you know, miniaturization or anything, Teflon. Tang, I think, has, you know, captured the popular consciousness.

The power of marketing. Yes, amen. So Tang was made by a food scientist named William Mitchell. Everybody should know this guy's name if you grew up in the 90s. So he also came up with Cool Whip, which was like a staple in my house in the 90s, pop rocks, which like instant nostalgia there. They still exist somehow. And instant jello. Wow. This guy should get the Nobel Prize for food science. Or he should get punished in some way because like adult Kelly dislikes all of those food items. But anyway, I mentioned that they get their water from the food. fuel cells and they have a kind of like, not great taste. So Tang was a like easy way you could get the packets and sort of hook them up to the water line or whatever and then

mix it up and then it would kind of cover up the taste from the fuel cells. And some of the astronauts loved it. Some of them hated it. In fact Buzz Aldrin in a 1988 interview on NPR said Tang sucks. If you go to some bars, you can

get a drink called the Buzz Aldrin that has Tang in it. And I I don't know if that was meant as like an insult to buzz or what. So you're saying Tang was popular among astronauts because it tasted better than like machine water. Yes. And even then, not all of them liked it. But again, I loved Tang when I was a kid too. All right.

But this is not really food for space, right? This is food connected to space through the genius of marketing. Let's get back to talking about how we actually feed astronauts in space. You took us through the 60s and 70s when it was basically like an extended version of fighter pilot goo. What about like in the 70s and 80s when we started spending more time in space? What did the food industry wizards whip up for those astronauts? Well, so the 70s and the 80s is when we started sending up space stations and people were staying up there for weeks and then months and now we're up to years or I think the longest

day was 437 days. They don't have to bring all of the food with them at once. There's resupply ships that come. And when those resupply ships come, they bring fresh food and it's like hugely popular. but we're still doing freeze-dried foods. We're still doing intermediate moisture foods, but there's just like a lot more options now. So on the International Space Station,

and this is jumping ahead in time a bit, there's over 200 options now. And so a lot of them, like on the cosmonaut side, it's like cans of jellied fish. On the U.S. side, there's a shrimp cocktail, I think, is very popular. I'm not personally a shrimp person myself. Any animal that you need to depop

before you eat it is not on my plate personally. Also, I try not to eat shrimp and other shelf foods if I'm very far from the shore. And I feel like up in space definitely qualifies is like really not near it. Yeah, not near it at all. Agreed. Agreed. So when the U.S. sent up Skylab in 1973, that was like maybe the height of dining and space. So they sent up a freezer and a fridge.

And I think that we have a fridge, but not a freezer on the ISS, although maybe we have a fridge for like scientific supplies. And I've heard that every once in a while food ends up in the science freezers on the ISS, which is a big no-no on Earth. But, you know, you do what you got to do in space. You know, in my house, like at home, my wife is a biologist. So, of course, we have science stuff in our freezer, including unmentionables from various members of the family. So she's like, don't open those brown paper bags unless you really want to see something you don't want to see. Oh, man. I know.

I keep objecting to that. I'm like, look, in your lab, you have a food freezer and a science freezer. Why can't we just make this a food freezer? I cannot wait to tell that to my husband because he's always like, you have infected fish brains in our freezer or what is this dead bird doing in the freezer? But we've never had bags of feces in our freezer. And I feel like Zach doesn't appreciate me as much as he should. But you know what I thought was fun?

The cosmonauts aboard Solute 1, which was the first base station to ever go up. Apparently they had first breakfast, second breakfast. lunch and dinner. So you would say they're wasting three meals worth of time. Oh my gosh. Whereas I like them even more knowing this. Although didn't the Lord of the Rings, didn't the Hobbits have first breakfast and second breakfast?

Anyway. Very likely. And homits are not famous in Lord of the Rings for being like very effective or getting stuff done. You know, they spent most of their time cooking meals and cleaning up after meals. It was a whole day, you know. First breakfast, second breakfast, 11sies, like Tuesdays. I mean, that was kind of the point.

They save the world, you monster. A lot of people died before they saved the world. If they just skipped breakfast, you know, they could have saved a whole lot of people from the agony. Maybe they wouldn't have had enough energy, Daniel. I'm getting choked up just thinking about it. My voice caught. So I was reading, you know, a lot of stories about what cosmonauts in space have been eating over the years. And one of the things they really love for fresh food that I read over and over again is onions.

And, in fact, the first birthday in space, it was Victor Pitsayev's 38th birthday aboard Salute I. They celebrated with an onion and a lemon that had been smuggled on board for that particular occasion and they all, like, bit into it and we're particularly excited about it. Like a raw, fresh onion? As far as I can tell, that's what happened. Man, your standards must really plummet if you spend a little bit of time in space. If you're like, an onion is a delicacy. Or if you live in the Soviet Union and the 70, things were, I think it was even worse in the

90s, but I don't think things were great then, but I guess then it was Russia. But it sounds like there's a big step up from the 60s to the 70s when we have like space stations and now we have options and different kinds of food and all sorts of stuff. What exactly was it that enabled that? Was it the freezers and the heaters on board or was just having more time in space meant people had to devote more energy to making the food actually good for the astronauts? Yeah, I think if you're going to have a program where people are going to be up there for months, then you're just kind of forced to do better and you're forced to make sure that you're

who's last longer, and they experimented with refrigerators and the trade-offs between how much energy and space they take. And so, yeah, I think it was just the need to make things last longer. So, like, we start using the space shuttle in 1981. It sticks around for, like, 20, 30-something years. But those missions were, like, two to three weeks. And so they sometimes used military meals that were called MREs or meals ready to eat. And so it's like, well, why reinvent the wheel if we've got something that can already work?

So if you're only going up for a couple weeks, you don't have to be fancy. Although those MREs were apparently awful, I talked to someone who said that they're known as meals rarely edible or meals requiring enemas because of their low fiber content. So here we are again. But if you're going to be up there in space for a long time, can't you grow some food? I mean, if we have like a basically a permanent space colony, we have a space station, it's up there all the time. is it feasible to have a little bit of a garden and grow some fresh food? Yeah, and there have been some experiments.

I think there's an experiment called veggie, and I can't remember if that's like a tortured acronym of some sort or they just decided to call it veggie. But so like one of the problems with growing food in space is that like water tends to form like bubbles and because of surface tension, it kind of sticks together. And so when you're trying to get roots that grow out to like have a lot of surface area connections

between the waters and the nutrients and stuff, it can be hard because the water tends to sort of like ball up in one spot and it's not necessarily interacting with the roots the way you want it to. And so they've had to figure out some various ways to like, you know, get the lighting, get the water, get the nutrients, but they have been able to grow food in space. To go back to the onions on Solute 6, there was an experiment with onions that they were supposed to do and the cosmonauts pretended the onions got lost so that they could eat them themselves. So they ate them.

But we've grown, I think, like mustard. greens, maybe kale, mazuka. There have been greens that have been grown in space and consumed in space. And apparently the act of growing these plants is like a huge mental health improvement for the people who tend

them. Like I guess they, you know, being near living things, as a biologist, this isn't surprising to me, but being near living things is just like really great for mental health. But the shuttle is when we got some pretty cool food advances. So the shuttle is the first time. So like, I love carbs.

you probably don't even eat carbs for whatever. No, no, I love carbs. I'm pro-carb, 100% pro-carb. I'm glad we're finding some common ground. We can agree on. Bread has a bunch of crumbs, and crumbs are a problem. Crumbs are not a problem for me. I love crumbs.

But you wouldn't want them in your equipment. No, this is true. This is one reason why I'm not a fighter pilot or an astronaut, because I'm pro-crumb. Okay. So there was a shuttle flight where we had the first Mexican astronaut. This was payload specialist Rodolfo Vela. and he was up there with astronaut Mary Cleave, and they had suggested, what if you bring tortillas up? Because tortillas are like edible plates that don't have a lot of crumbs.

And after that point, tortillas are like a staple in space now. Like almost everything is eaten on top of a tortilla in space. And for a while, they were using Taco Bell tortillas because Taco Bell makes tortillas that are shelf stable for nine months. knowing its shelf stable that long, you're like, oh, it's not food, is it? What is that actually? No, the food science is probably a name for it. You know, it's like a flattened circular food product or whatever you call it.

Yeah, yeah. But the Russians, they're not so into tortillas. Instead, they've made these tiny little bite-sized breads that don't shed a lot of crumbs. And I guess they're so tiny that they're called Barbie breads because you can imagine like a little Barbie using one in her little dream house. But, you know, one of the interesting things about space is that, like, Okay, so we've talked about all these freeze-dried foods and foods in cans that, frankly, don't sound particularly delicious to me.

But it seems, for reasons we don't totally understand, to be hard to actually taste things in space. And there's a couple different explanations for this, but astronauts regularly complain that, like, food is way less flavorful. One of the ideas is that you're up in space, you're in free fall, your fluids are sort of moving up towards your head. and if you've ever been congested or had like a sinus infection and it's all congested, maybe you notice that food tastes less flavorful at that point. So like a lot of flavor isn't just about our taste buds. It's about the act of like smelling the food that we're eating also. So if you're all like congested, you're losing the smell parts that brings us such joy when we eat.

But then another idea is that like a lot of that food is like in a bag that you added water to. So you can't really smell it anyway, right? because you're just like drinking it through a straw at the beginning. So they don't really know why food tastes less flavorful, but many astronauts report this. Seems like they should invent something where there's like a tube that goes to your mouth and another one that goes to your nose so you can like simultaneously smell it and eat it. It seems like the kind of thing NASA would come up with, right?

Come on, engineers, get with the programs. Yeah, they're not working on the important questions, are they? No. I was at a restaurant once and I was watching a woman. She was like talking to someone and she went to bring her cup with a straw in it up to her mouth, but she wasn't paying attention to the straw went up her nose and like shoved her head back. And then she looked around to see if anyone had seen and then she saw I was kind of chuckling

and I was like, it's okay. You're like, don't worry, I'm a biologist. I'm just observing you. That's right. That's right. So I'm not sure that I would want a straw in my nose, I guess is what I'm saying. It's a weird, awkward, embarrassing situation. Well, I wouldn't want to eat cardboard for every single meal.

I mean, I think if you're not tasting your food, then like, why are you even eating it? So they try to get around this. Like, they've had celebrity chefs create extra flavorful meals. And then things like taco sauce packets are so popular that on one flight, they were actually, like, used as currency. So you'd be like, all right, I don't want to clean the toilets today. So I will pay you three taco sauce packets if you clean the toilet. This is like a prison economy.

Just see what life is like up there, you know? It's like I'm trading like two packets of cigarettes and a minute on the phone, you know. This is crazy. Well, and the bar is so low. like Shannon Lucid, so she was on Mir, which was a Soviet Russian space station. She lost a shoe once and she couldn't find it. Like space stations are notoriously cluttered and hard to find things. So she offered the guy on the mission that she was on.

There were two guys. And she said, all right, whoever finds my shoe, you get your own bag of green jello. And immediately both of the guys were like, we got to find it. One of them found it. He got his own bag of green jello. And they had a fridge on mirror so that he was able to like have it for himself. But apparently, like, the jello was a big bonding experience. And so, like, they would make jello, like, every Friday.

They'd all get spoons. They'd share it together. So jello's like a good space food because it sticks and stays in the bag. So you can just, like, spoon it out. And a lot of astronauts will report that actually having meals together and sharing food is, like, one of the most impactful experiences they had. Like Leland Melvin has a book about being an astronaut. And he talks about how, you know, all these people from all these different countries

were like sitting around a table, some were floating above it, some were floating below it, but they were all sharing a meal together looking down at Earth and it was this like profound experience. So yeah, food is so much more than just a way to keep these squishy meatbags moving on. It must really be an ancient thing sharing food because frankly I find it biologically weird that we sit around and have conversation at the same time as we're using our mouths for something else, right? It's awkward. I'm sitting there. I'm eating. I'm also supposed to be talking. You know, like the whole thing is kind of weird. It's some like bizarre, ancient primal memory of like, you know, sharing food on the savannah or something.

You think you know someone. I don't understand any of these opinions you're sharing Daniel. If we're talking about eating and pooping, wouldn't it make more biological sense for people to eat in private and then poop together? Because then you're using your mouth for just one thing. You give me the weirdest look. You are supposed to come visit me in March. And I am thinking of rescinding the invitation. When a biologist thinks your poop comments are weird, then I guess you're over the line.

Yeah, you've gone too far with this. Let's back things up. Tell me more about this taco sauce in space because are you telling me they used taco sauce so much? It became like a condiment you could put on anything. Yeah, and mayonnaise is also very popular. Although I don't think of mayonnaise as being super flavorful, but like condiments are big in space for whatever reason. So we were talking about, you know, the cultural aspects of food. So throughout the different space eras, there have been different.

programs where folks from different cultures have come up and a lot of them try to bring some of their own food from home with them. And this is really exciting for the astronauts because they get a chance to try something new and, you know, things get pretty monotonous in space. But there is also like some conflict. So for example, they're supposed to send up 50% Russian food and 50% American food. And there was this experiment where diaries were taken from astronauts. Like every day they'd have to write, this is what my day was like. This is how I felt. Blah, blah, blah. And one of the people, their entry was, I have had many programmatic flights with the Russians about the inequality of Russian slash U.S. foods, supposed to be 50-50. They have always had more Russian on board using the rationale that people like Russian food

better. That is bull poops. Cold War in space. Cold War in space. Oh, all right. We're about to stop for a break. But folks should wonder, well, during the break, what was Swedish Issa astronaut Christopher Fugla Sang.

Don't send me emails about that. Sorry, guys. Discouraged from bringing him with him in space in 2006 that he really wanted to bring with him. We'll get back to it after the break. I'm guessing some stinky fish thing. Hey, Sess, what if I could promise you you never had to listen to a condescending finance, bro, tell you how to manage your money again. Welcome to Brown Ambition. This is the hard part when you pay down those credit cards. If you haven't gotten to the bottom of why you were racking up credit or turning to credit cards, you may just recreate the same problem a year from now. When you do feel like you are bleeding

from these high interest rates, I would start shopping for a debt consolidation loan, starting with your local credit union, shopping around online, looking for some online lenders because they tend to have fewer fees and be more affordable. Listen, I am not here to judge. It is, so expensive in these streets. I 100% can see how in just a few months you can have this much credit card debt when it weighs on you. It's really easy to just like stick your head in the sand. It's nice and dark in the sand. Even if it's scary, it's not going to go away just because you're avoiding it. And in fact, it may get even worse. For more judgment-free money advice, listen to Brown Ambition on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

I had this like overwhelming sensation that I had to call it right then. And I just hit call. Said, you know, hey, I'm Jacob Schick, I'm the CEO of One Tribe Foundation, and I just wanted to call on and let her know there's a lot of people battling some of the very same things you're battling. And there is help out there. The Good Stuff podcast, Season 2, takes a deep look into One Tribe Foundation, a non-profit fighting suicide in the veteran community. September is National Suicide Prevention Month,

so join host Jacob and Ashley Schick as they bring you to the front lines of One Tribe's mission. I was married to a combat army veteran, and he actually took his own mom. have to suicide. One tribe saved my life twice. There's a lot of love that flows through this place and it's sincere. Now it's a personal mission. Don't have to go to any more funerals, you know. I got blown up on a React mission. I ended up having amputation below the knee of my right leg and a traumatic brain injury because I landed on my head. Welcome to season two of the Good Stuff. Listen to the Good Stuff podcast on the Iheart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Your entire identity has been fabricated. Your beloved brother goes missing.

without a trace. You discover the depths of your mother's illness the way it has echoed and reverberated throughout your life, impacting your very legacy. Hi, I'm Danny Shapiro. And these are just a few of the profound and powerful stories I'll be mining on our 12th season of Family Secrets. With over 37 million downloads, we continue to be moved and inspired by our guests and their courageously told stories. I can't wait to share 10 powerful new episodes with you, stories of tangled up identities, concealed truths, and the way in which family secrets almost always need to be told. I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of family secrets. Listen to Family Secrets Season 12 on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your

podcasts. Hello, it's Honey German. And my podcast, Grazacus come again, is back. This season, we're going even deeper into the world of music and entertainment with raw and honest conversations with some of your favorite Latin artists and celebrities.

You didn't have to audition? No, I didn't audition. I haven't audition in, like, over 25 years. Oh, wow. That's a real G-talk right there. Oh, yeah. We've got some of the biggest actors, musicians, content creators, and culture shifters

sharing their real stories of failure and success. You were destined to be a start. We talk all about what's viral and trending with a little bit of chisement, a lot of laughs, and those amazing Vibras you've come to expect. And of course, we'll explore deeper topics dealing with identity, struggles, and all the issues affecting our Latin community.

You feel like you get a little whitewash because you have to do the code switching? I won't say whitewash because at the end of the day, you know, I'm me. But the whole pretending and code, you know, it takes a toll on you. Listen to the new. New season of Grasas Has Come Again as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Dr. Joy Hardin Bradford.

And in session 421 of Therapy for Black Girls, I sit down with Dr. Afea and Billy Shaka to explore how our hair connects to our identity, mental health, and the ways we heal. Because I think hair is a complex language system, right, in terms of it can tell how old you are, your marital status, where you're from, you're spiritual. believe, but I think with social media, there's like a hyper fixation and observation of our hair, right? That this is sometimes the first thing someone sees when we make a post or a reel. It's how our hair is styled. We talk about the important role hairstyles play in our community, the pressure to always look put together, and how breaking up with perfection can actually free us. Plus, if you're someone who gets anxious about flying, don't miss session 418 with Dr. Angela Neil Barnett, where we dive into managing flight anxiety.

Listen to therapy for black girls on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. So the question is, Swedish astronaut. He was coming to space in 2006. What did he want to bring with him that he was discouraged from bringing? Daniel guessed stinky fish. thing. So I think all fish stink. I hate the smell of fish, which is why that job where I had to jump into a dump truck full of dead fish for my master's degree was just so miserable. But actually, when the Japanese bring fish, the Russians bring fish, these are very popular meals. Maybe because they're more flavorful. Maybe it comes back to that. But no, this Swedish astronaut wanted to bring reindeer jerky. And there was concern that this would upset American children. He's eating Rudolph. Exactly. He's eating. He's eating.

eating Santa's reindeer. I'm not going to get Christmas presents this year. And so instead he brought moose jerky. Anyway, international disaster averted. So what South Korean food do you think they had to bring? Kimchi, of course. Kimchi, of course. I can't say that I'm a kimchi fan personally.

And your face says you like kimchi, is that right? Kimchi is great on everything. Oh, my gosh. We are a big fan of pickled foods in my eyes. Oh, you know, Zach really likes pickled food. So you two will have a great time when you visit. I'll stay somewhere else. But so the South Koreans wanted to bring kimchi.

And one of the food scientists in Korea who was working on the kimchi said, without kimchi, Koreans feel flabby. Yeah. Not wanting a flabby astronaut. I think it's a big part of being Korean having kimchi. Yeah, you got to have it or you're not really eating. But I don't think I would have connected it with flabbiness. Yeah, that's interesting.

I wonder if that was like a lost in translation sort of thing. But so one of the problems with kimchi is that kimchi uses, bacteria in the fermentation process. And when NASA sends stuff up to space, they don't want any bacteria in there because food poisoning, it can butate, blah, blah, blah. And so they had to try to find a way to, like, get kimchi partway through the fermentation process and then kill all the bacteria and still try to make it flavorful. And apparently it didn't really work.

The Korean astronaut Soyanyi said after radiation, because they had to radiate it to kill the bacteria. Yeah. After radiation, the kimchi became so saggy. It looked like it was 100 years old. I cannot say it's really tasteful kimchi, but still I like it because I can feel my home. So, you know. But they're not really making it sterile, right? I mean, if you irradiate foods, my microbiologist's wife would just tell me that you're enhancing the extremophiles, right? She should be a food scientist. Yeah, no, I don't know the answer. Yeah, maybe they killed it some other way also. Maybe they irradiated it and then like ultra heat processed it. But is the concern that you're going to bring up some bacteria that's going to get people sick? That's the idea. Yeah, I think so.

Well, we've pretty much gone over the history of food in space. Like, we figured a lot of stuff out. We've got ways to make food shelf stable. We've got some ways to make it not taste so bad. But everybody's still definitely super excited when the fresh stuff comes up. But what party would be complete in space or otherwise without alcohol? So first of all, I want to pitch this great book called Alcohol. in space by Chris Carberry.

It's a super fun read about the past and future of alcohol in space. So Daniel, when the first American drank in space, do you know who or when it was? I have no idea who had the first drink in space. Was it connected to the person who first yakked in space? No. No. So actually, I don't know if any of the Russians had drinks in space. Quick tangent here.

In general, the Soviet space program is like way more okay with alcohol in space in the U.S. I think they, like, totally accept that the end of a stressful day is not a problem to have, like, a shot of something. Yeah. As far as I could tell, there have been no instances of drinking, getting out of control where, like, at the end of the day, somebody had, like, the bottle instead of a shot. And in fact, there was an incident on mirror where one of the oxygen canisters caught fire. And so there was, like, a fire in space that they were trying to put out. There was some concern that they were going to have to abandon the space station. And afterwards, the psychologist for the crew called up and they were like, we think you should all.

drink a little and to like relax so like the Russians and the Soviets have always been way more comfortable and I was talking to someone who works on life support systems for the ISS and even though NASA is like no no alcohol you're not supposed to have alcohol in space the air quality is monitored to an incredible degree on the international space station because you know like carbon dioxide needs to get removed by the system and I guess every once in a while they pick up ethanol from the Russian side of the space station that they're not expecting it's So they think that's instances where, like, alcohol has been kind of snuck up into space, even though NASA doesn't want it because the Russians just don't care about it as much. First, astronaut to have a drink in space, though, was Buzz Aldrin.

Of course. Should have guessed. Good old Buzz. I am always hesitant to joke about Buzz Aldrin and drinking because he admitted in one of his books that he has a problem with alcoholism. But he is also Catholic, and he wanted to take communion when he landed on the moon. And so they landed on the moon. And before they got out of the lander, he had a little sip of wine. So wine was the first and I think only alcoholic beverage consumed on the moon. And then he had, when I was a Catholic kid growing up, I called them Christcrackers. But like the communion wafers, he took communion on the moon.

And that was the first time anyone had alcohol on the moon. And was that the first communion off the surface of the earth? Well, that's a good question. That's the first communion that I read about. There was a passage from the Bible that was read during a. Apollo 8, which happened over Christmas. But for a long time, Buzz Aldrin didn't talk about taking communion because there was like a bit of a brouhaha about like whether religious things should be happening in space

when it's taxpayer dollars and our country has separation of church and state. And so I think a lot of that stuff was hushed up and then not mentioned until later. So maybe something happened, but it wasn't reported. But Buzz Aldrin is the first instance that I know about. Wow. Fascinating. So here's another important question. This conversation has been kind of all over the place. but I'm having a lot of fun.

Would you drink beer in space? And if so, why or why not? Do you drink beer at all? I'm a fan of beer, absolutely. I think beer is delicious. And in our house, again, we're big fans of all kinds of fermented foods. We are allied with the microbes and make our bread and our beer and our pickles and all sorts of stuff. I think I would like to enjoy beer in space, but I'd be worried a little bit about the burping.

Do you burp in space the same way? Now I'm thinking about how the Earth plays a role in all of my biological functions, moving stuff up and down. and all around. And so I'd be worried about, like, a large gas bubble forming inside of me. Exactly. Yeah. So burping in space is apparently very unpleasant. Those air bubbles often, like, bring food up with them also.

And so, like, Pepsi and Coke during the Cola Wars or whatever, they both sent their beverages up to space and space particular containers. I can't remember if they sent them up flat because they knew this was a problem or if it was really unpleasant for people because. But anyway, carbonated beverages. not appreciated in space because burping in space is a very unpleasant experience.

Well, that's too bad because burping on the surface of the earth is really pretty great. And I'm a big fan of sparkling water and also to other carbonated beverages. So what a big bummer about going out of space. I know. I totally agree.

Like, Zach is not in your camp at all. He thinks all bodily sounds should be kept to oneself. I don't know why he married a biologist. We all make mistakes. But, like, one of the nice things about Mars might be that if you did beer on, Mars, that gravity might be enough to sort of make the problem of belching go away or at least

be less unpleasant. So, yeah, or rotating space stations, you know, so we have to solve these problems quickly so that we can start bringing beer to space. Yes, absolutely. Because if humans are going to live in space or on other planets, we got to figure out how to keep people happy, right? It's not just about survival. It's about living life and quality of life.

We don't just want to eke out some primitive, like, existence where we're we're squeezing food tubes into each other's mouths. We want to actually have joy and fun out in space or on other planets. Yeah, right. So Biosphere. We're going to talk about Biosphere 2 in the next episode, but to sort of cut to the chase on that story, they lost a bunch of weight because they couldn't produce enough food in this facility where they were trying to close every same thing.

So the plants would make the oxygen and they would remove the carbon dioxide and that would also be what they ate. and the men lost 18% of their body weight and the women lost 10%. But even though they were having trouble getting enough calories for dinner and they were like literally like licking their bowls to try to get the last of everything,

they took some of their precious bananas to make banana wine because like you said, it's not just about eking out in existence. Like plenty of people have great lives without alcohol, but some of us really like to have a glass of wine at the end of the day or something. and they were willing to give up some of their calories

so that they could make this wine to bring them a little bit of joy at the end of a hard day. I think they were doing like eight to ten hours of labor tending their crops five and a half days a week. So it was like intense. And Andy Weir, so he's the guy who wrote The Martian. And in The Martian, his main character, Mark Watney, I think the guy's name is,

he eats a bunch of potatoes. And those potatoes, the fertilizer is like human poo. And people have asked Andy Weir a lot, why didn't he use any of those potatoes to make liquor? And Andy Weir answered that, like, it would have taken so many potatoes to make the liquor that he just, he probably would have died. He wouldn't have gotten enough calories.

And I think that's a totally reasonable conclusion to come to. But when you actually have humans who are starving, we will make banana wine because we need to be happy too. So, yeah, I think the trick for space, like, so as we mentioned, a lot of these missions are, short. They're like weeks, months, maybe a year or something. So you can handle eating food that's not super flavorful. But when we're finally settling somewhere and staying there for years at a time, there's a lot that we need to learn so that we can get better about this kind of stuff

because like rehydrated potatoes are not going to cut it for a lifetime. So in the next episode, we'll talk more about the future of food and space. I mean, even on airplane flights, The first approach, which is just like, get some food up there, which is edible and not going to kill people, people are not cool with it, right? And this is why we now have pretty good food on airplanes, because companies realize, like, humans will always want good food. They will pay a little bit more to have good food, even if you're just in the air for a few hours. It's not okay to just squeeze something into your mouth to survive. It's part of living, and it's part of enjoying this extraordinary universe.

Humans also want more legroom airlines. Take note. Work on that, too, please. I'm not even that tall. All right, airplane engineers, work on more legroom. In the meantime, stay tuned for our next episode about food in space. Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe is produced by IHeart Radio. We would love to hear from you. We really would. We want to know what questions.

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