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

0:06
Speaker 1: Food is really really important to humans, and not just
0:11
Speaker 1: as a way to keep these squishy machines of ours running.
0:15
Speaker 1: Our religions have rules about the kinds of foods we
0:18
Speaker 1: can eat and when we can eat them. We use
0:21
Speaker 1: comfort foods to relax, and we break bread with the
0:24
Speaker 1: people that we hold deer. But bringing food with us
0:27
Speaker 1: when we travel far from home to explore remote environments
0:32
Speaker 1: is really hard. Before we were sending astronauts to space,
0:36
Speaker 1: humans were sailing the open seas and exploring Earth's frozen poles,
0:40
Speaker 1: and initially we didn't have the whole food thing figured
0:43
Speaker 1: out really well. During the Age of Sale, which ran
0:47
Speaker 1: from like fifteen seventy to eighteen sixty ish, a disease
0:50
Speaker 1: called scurvy was a huge problem. We didn't really understand
0:55
Speaker 1: at the time that our bodies needed vitamin C and
0:58
Speaker 1: that vitamin C came from fresh stuff like fruits and vegetables.
1:01
Speaker 1: I've seen reports that two million sailors died of scurvy
1:05
Speaker 1: during this time, and that number seems kind of hard
1:08
Speaker 1: to believe, but I guess it's over three hundred years
1:11
Speaker 1: and there were loads of people sailing at the time.
1:14
Speaker 1: But this is a horrible way to die without vitamin C.
1:18
Speaker 1: Your connective tissues degenerate, your gums start to bleed, Your
1:23
Speaker 1: teeth wobble and fall out. Wounds that it healed a
1:26
Speaker 1: long time ago, like magically reopen and start bleeding again.
1:31
Speaker 1: You get lethargic, you get weakness, and it's a slow,
1:35
Speaker 1: miserable death. But eventually we figured out that humans need
1:38
Speaker 1: vitamin C, and vitamin C comes from fresh stuff. But
1:41
Speaker 1: even when you have the right foods, it can be
1:43
Speaker 1: hard to pack the foods right. During the Franklin Expedition,
1:47
Speaker 1: which was a British expedition that left in eighteen forty
1:50
Speaker 1: five to explore the Arctic, there was lead lining in
1:53
Speaker 1: the cans that stored their food and that appears to
1:55
Speaker 1: have given some of the crew lead poisoning. And even
1:58
Speaker 1: when you do figure out how to pack the food
2:00
Speaker 1: in a way that doesn't kill the crew, often the
2:03
Speaker 1: food is not super tasty because shelf stable food is
2:07
Speaker 1: just not always super delicious. So a common staple on
2:11
Speaker 1: polar expeditions was called pemmican, and this super shelf stable
2:16
Speaker 1: food was made out of animal fat mixed with dried
2:20
Speaker 1: meat and dried berries. And yes, it's exceptionally shelf stable,
2:24
Speaker 1: so nice to pack on long expeditions far from the
2:27
Speaker 1: grocery store, but it is not exceptionally delicious. Complaints about
2:32
Speaker 1: Pemmican include that it stops you up, which sounds rather unpleasant,
2:37
Speaker 1: It tastes awful, and it generally leaves the consumer greasy.
2:41
Speaker 1: So like that animal fat gets on your clothes, it
2:44
Speaker 1: gets in your hair, and like in an environment where
2:47
Speaker 1: it's really hard to take a good shower, that grease
2:50
Speaker 1: kind of builds up over time and is a very unpleasant.
2:53
Speaker 1: But tasty food is so important on difficult journeys on
2:57
Speaker 1: polar expeditions, they see special foods like holidays as a
3:01
Speaker 1: morale boost and has ways to keep people going. The
3:04
Speaker 1: best stuff was saved for like Christmas dinners, so that
3:06
Speaker 1: they could all look forward to that and celebrate, And
3:09
Speaker 1: if morale was getting low, they would make up a
3:11
Speaker 1: holiday and pull out the chocolate that they had stored
3:14
Speaker 1: for special occasions to try to perk everybody up and
3:17
Speaker 1: keep them going. So, as you may know, I'm really
3:19
Speaker 1: interested in what life is going to be like as
3:21
Speaker 1: we set out to settle Mars, and so I've thought
3:24
Speaker 1: a fair bit about what food has been like so
3:28
Speaker 1: far in space, and what food might be like when
3:32
Speaker 1: we finally moved to Mars. You know, how are we
3:34
Speaker 1: going to grow it, how are we going to make it,
3:35
Speaker 1: How are we going to make sure we have enough
3:37
Speaker 1: and that it's delicious. But Mars is going to have
3:39
Speaker 1: its own challenges that are unique to human history that
3:43
Speaker 1: we haven't really experienced yet. So, for example, on polar expeditions,
3:47
Speaker 1: when food ran low, there was often a chance that
3:50
Speaker 1: you could kill a polar bear or a penguin or
3:53
Speaker 1: some fish or a turtle and you know, extend your
3:56
Speaker 1: food supply in that way. And sadly, it was also
3:59
Speaker 1: pretty common to kill the dogs that were pulling the
4:01
Speaker 1: sleighs when you ran out of food, so that you
4:02
Speaker 1: could eat them as well. But unless there are some
4:05
Speaker 1: massive surprises on Mars, there's not going to be Martian
4:09
Speaker 1: polar bears that we can use as back up when
4:11
Speaker 1: we get up there. So this is the first of
4:13
Speaker 1: a two part series on food in space. First, we're
4:17
Speaker 1: going to explore the history of food in space and
4:19
Speaker 1: some of the challenges that had to be overcome to
4:21
Speaker 1: get shelf stable food to be safe and delicious for
4:25
Speaker 1: our astronauts, and then in episode two, we're going to
4:27
Speaker 1: take a look at the future of food in space
4:30
Speaker 1: and what farmers might be up to when we finally
4:33
Speaker 1: settle Mars. Welcome to Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe.
4:51
Speaker 2: Hi. I'm Daniel. I'm a particle physicist, and I'm pretty
4:54
Speaker 2: persnickety about what I eat.
4:56
Speaker 1: I'm Kelly Wainer Smith. I study parasites, and I I
5:00
Speaker 1: love food, and if you ask me ahead of time,
5:02
Speaker 1: I will try to not talk about the parasites that
5:04
Speaker 1: are in your food. If you take me out to dinner.
5:08
Speaker 2: All right, Kelly, We'll have a really important question for
5:10
Speaker 2: you that might shape the entire future of our friendship.
5:13
Speaker 1: Oh oh, high steaks.
5:15
Speaker 2: All right, it's high steaks. Yes. How do you feel
5:18
Speaker 2: about dark chocolate versus white chocolate? Think carefully?
5:21
Speaker 3: So.
5:21
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, I hated white chocolate, but
5:23
Speaker 1: as an adult my tastes of matured. I still prefer
5:27
Speaker 1: dark chocolate, but I like white chocolate too. All right,
5:30
Speaker 1: are we still good? Or is it over for our friendship?
5:32
Speaker 2: Now? Borderline? Borderline, you threw a bone too dark chocolate there,
5:37
Speaker 2: But I will not even admit white chocolate into the
5:40
Speaker 2: category of chocolate. I will admit it can be tasty
5:43
Speaker 2: in moments, but to me it doesn't belong in the
5:45
Speaker 2: same sentence as actual chocolate.
5:47
Speaker 1: Is it made from cocal beans or is there something
5:50
Speaker 1: about white chocolate that I don't know?
5:51
Speaker 2: It's only the butter. It has no actual cocoa in it.
5:54
Speaker 1: M I mean, I don't get too worked up about
5:57
Speaker 1: terminology and jargon. I just know what delicious and what's not.
6:01
Speaker 1: But sure, I'll go with it, white chocolate. I'm kicking
6:05
Speaker 1: you to the curb. It's just okay.
6:09
Speaker 2: And Welcome to the podcast Daniel and Kelly's Extraordinary Universe,
6:13
Speaker 2: in which we talk about everything that's tasty and amazing
6:17
Speaker 2: and wonderful in this universe. We take a big bite
6:20
Speaker 2: out of it and try to make it all digestible
6:21
Speaker 2: to you. Everything from the tiniest little particles to the
6:24
Speaker 2: biggest planets and the swirling galaxies of this incredible, extraordinary
6:29
Speaker 2: universe delicious.
6:32
Speaker 1: Well. On today's show, we are talking about food in space,
6:35
Speaker 1: which I spent so much time reading about when we
6:39
Speaker 1: were working on a city on Mars. And there are
6:42
Speaker 1: so many fun stories about food that's gone to space
6:44
Speaker 1: that some people love and some people hate that. I
6:46
Speaker 1: was like, Daniel, let's start doing two part episodes because
6:49
Speaker 1: I have so much to say about food. And you're like, fine,
6:52
Speaker 1: I'll let you talk about food, but we like to
6:54
Speaker 1: hear what other people have to say about food too.
6:57
Speaker 1: So you went out to the campus of uc IRVA
7:00
Speaker 1: and accosted people with your microphone and ask them questions
7:04
Speaker 1: about food and space.
7:05
Speaker 2: That's right, I asked folks, what were the big challenges
7:07
Speaker 2: to keeping astronauts fed. If you would like to contribute
7:11
Speaker 2: to answers for the podcast, please write to us to
7:14
Speaker 2: questions at danieland Kelly dot org. We'd love to hear
7:18
Speaker 2: your voice and include your answers in this segment of
7:21
Speaker 2: the podcast.
7:22
Speaker 1: When you send us an email, just say hey, I
7:24
Speaker 1: want to give you my opinion on stuff, and we'll
7:26
Speaker 1: send you the question that we're working on at the moment,
7:28
Speaker 1: and you'll just send us an audio file with your answer.
7:30
Speaker 2: Easy, pasy, and then you can impressed all of your
7:32
Speaker 2: friends by having your voice on our podcast.
7:35
Speaker 3: Whop.
7:35
Speaker 1: All right, let's hear what we came up with this week.
7:38
Speaker 3: Probably getting the food up there, I would imagine, I
7:40
Speaker 3: think every pound of material that you bring up costs
7:43
Speaker 3: an enormous amount of money. Well, I was supposed that
7:49
Speaker 3: under different gravitational circumstances you need to take care of
7:55
Speaker 3: your muscles and tub bones in such a way that
8:00
Speaker 3: when you get back to Earth things might feel heavier
8:03
Speaker 3: and you're used to them feeling likely in most pay station,
8:06
Speaker 3: for instance. Yeah, I think we can probably engineer our
8:08
Speaker 3: way through it, but we just need that. I mean,
8:10
Speaker 3: you have sunlight, fiber, fiber Okay, Oh.
8:15
Speaker 1: That's a good line.
8:17
Speaker 2: I think I agree with fiber. Well, all right, keeping
8:20
Speaker 2: the food from not perishing like bacteria. It's world. You
8:25
Speaker 2: need a lot of it and it can't go bad.
8:28
Speaker 1: Well, can you have a fridge and space? Oh?
8:31
Speaker 3: What helps?
8:32
Speaker 2: I mean, our society has gotten so good at processed
8:34
Speaker 2: food that we've got tons of stuff that's like shelf
8:37
Speaker 2: stable for decades.
8:39
Speaker 1: So that's not the issue.
8:41
Speaker 2: I'm sure we'll have plenty of ways to make food.
8:45
Speaker 2: We'll have to really make sure that there's good vitamins
8:47
Speaker 2: in there and fiber and so forth. But I guess
8:51
Speaker 2: the real problem will be.
8:53
Speaker 3: Just the boredom.
8:54
Speaker 1: Like it will be hard for the astronauts to live
8:56
Speaker 1: that way for so long, and man just what they
8:59
Speaker 1: would do for a well Daniel, These were some good answers.
9:02
Speaker 1: What do you think is the major challenge for keeping
9:05
Speaker 1: astronauts fed?
9:06
Speaker 2: I agree with the answers that are concerned about boredom,
9:08
Speaker 2: because you know, food is important, so I look forward
9:11
Speaker 2: to dinner. You know. Maybe that's because I only eat
9:14
Speaker 2: one meal a day, But when I sit down to
9:15
Speaker 2: eat that meal, I'm like, hmmm, I'm gonna enjoy this.
9:19
Speaker 2: And so if you're working hard, you're out there in space,
9:21
Speaker 2: and space is like not always that comfortable or forgiving,
9:24
Speaker 2: then you got to make sure your meals are something
9:26
Speaker 2: you can enjoy.
9:27
Speaker 1: Well, I think our friendship's on the line again. You
9:30
Speaker 1: eat one meal a day? Are you like my husband
9:33
Speaker 1: who's like, oh, I forgot to have breakfast? And I'm like,
9:35
Speaker 1: people write you and tell you how smart you are.
9:37
Speaker 1: How did you forget to have breakfast? You only eat
9:40
Speaker 1: at dinner?
9:41
Speaker 2: No, I don't know if this makes me dumber or
9:42
Speaker 2: smarter than your husband, but I only eat when the
9:45
Speaker 2: sun goes down. I'm on the vampire diet.
9:47
Speaker 1: Why I don't understand. I love the act of chewing
9:50
Speaker 1: on food so much I couldn't only do it after
9:53
Speaker 1: the sun goes down. Why only after the sun goes down.
9:55
Speaker 2: It's not because I'm actually a Vampire's good, don't worry
9:57
Speaker 2: about it.
9:58
Speaker 1: Your curtain's open behind you. You'd be a guy.
10:01
Speaker 2: But breakfast and lunch, I feel like the interfere with
10:03
Speaker 2: the flow of the day. You know, this way, I
10:04
Speaker 2: have a whole day. The rest of humanity has to
10:07
Speaker 2: like pack food and take it with them. It's a hassle.
10:09
Speaker 2: Everybody's like spending hours in the morning preparing their lunch
10:12
Speaker 2: and bring it with them. Oh, it's spilled in my backpack,
10:14
Speaker 2: and now I got to take a break. I just
10:16
Speaker 2: have like a nice whole day, and then at the
10:18
Speaker 2: end of it, I get a meal. It's wonderful. You
10:20
Speaker 2: look totally dumbfound it over there.
10:21
Speaker 1: I don't know how to process this, but you know,
10:24
Speaker 1: I went through a similar thought process when I was younger,
10:26
Speaker 1: trying to decide if I was going to learn how
10:28
Speaker 1: to do makeup and then spend time putting it on
10:30
Speaker 1: every day. And I was like, well, by the time
10:33
Speaker 1: I'm like ninety, that would have taken like one and
10:36
Speaker 1: a half years of my life, and I just don't
10:38
Speaker 1: think it's worth it. So I'm not going to do it,
10:40
Speaker 1: but I just can't imagine making that same decision about food.
10:43
Speaker 2: Well, you know, eating at home is the best because
10:45
Speaker 2: then you get to prepare the food the way you
10:46
Speaker 2: like it, you have all of your ingredients. This is
10:49
Speaker 2: one reason that like airplane food has always been terrible, right,
10:52
Speaker 2: because it's got to be stored and transported. Eating lunch,
10:55
Speaker 2: when you're bringing your food with you or you got
10:56
Speaker 2: to find some restaurant or something, it's a big hassle
10:59
Speaker 2: and it's never as good is something you could have
11:01
Speaker 2: at home. So I try to save that up and
11:03
Speaker 2: enjoy it at home. That's similar to the challenge of
11:05
Speaker 2: today's episode, right, how do you prepare food, bring it
11:08
Speaker 2: to space, keep it healthy, keep it fresh, keep it
11:11
Speaker 2: good for the astronauts.
11:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, so actually, when we first started going to space,
11:15
Speaker 1: it was moderately easy, so the missions were short. The
11:18
Speaker 1: very first trip to space, when Yuri Alexeyevich Gagarin went
11:22
Speaker 1: up in nineteen sixty one, most of the cosmonauts were
11:26
Speaker 1: already fighter pilots and there was already food figured out
11:28
Speaker 1: for fighter pilots. So just like cosmonauts, they go up
11:31
Speaker 1: there in these like pressureized suits with these awkward helmets,
11:34
Speaker 1: and there's all this stuff they need to pay attention to.
11:36
Speaker 1: So you can't be like opening up something complicated and
11:40
Speaker 1: applying catch up. It needs to be something that you
11:42
Speaker 1: get the calories in there as fast as you can.
11:44
Speaker 1: And so for fighter pilots, they had already figured out
11:46
Speaker 1: these like toothpaste shaped tubes.
11:49
Speaker 2: Uh, so it was bad. You're telling me the first
11:52
Speaker 2: space food was as bad as fighter pilot food, which
11:54
Speaker 2: sounds terrible.
11:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was bad. The first foods eaten in space
11:58
Speaker 1: were a tube of meat, maybe two tubes of meat,
12:02
Speaker 1: followed by a tube of chocolate for dessert, So pretty gross.
12:07
Speaker 2: Was that the first food eaten by humans? Or did
12:09
Speaker 2: they send up any food with a monkey or with
12:11
Speaker 2: the dog that they sent into space?
12:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, Soleika and Bilka and Stroka, those were dogs that
12:16
Speaker 1: were sent up to space. They were sent up with food.
12:18
Speaker 1: I think the food was in a jelly sort of
12:21
Speaker 1: thing to kind of hold everything together so that it
12:22
Speaker 1: wouldn't float apart. So also kibbles and gelatin.
12:25
Speaker 2: I guarantee those dogs ate that thing up before the
12:28
Speaker 2: thing even got off the ground.
12:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, because dogs are gross. I don't think they had
12:32
Speaker 1: any trouble getting them to eat their food. But yeah,
12:35
Speaker 1: so you're right. First food that humans ate in space
12:38
Speaker 1: Eureka Garon. He seemed like he was a pretty like chill,
12:41
Speaker 1: easygoing guy. He was happy with the food, he was
12:44
Speaker 1: happy with the flight. Life was great. The next guy
12:46
Speaker 1: who went up, GERMANTITV, he threw up, and you know,
12:50
Speaker 1: he was also great, but he puked. That is the
12:52
Speaker 1: first case of a human getting space adaptation sickness.
12:56
Speaker 2: Oh wait, what is space adaptation sickness? Is that just like, hey,
13:00
Speaker 2: tube of food is not really food or is it
13:02
Speaker 2: something to do with actually being out in space.
13:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's something to do with actually being out in space.
13:06
Speaker 1: So part of how we have our sense of balance
13:09
Speaker 1: is that our ears have like some fluid in them
13:11
Speaker 1: and some hairs. Based on what the fluids are doing
13:14
Speaker 1: to those hairs, that kind of tells us how our
13:16
Speaker 1: body is oriented. And you know, we just have various
13:19
Speaker 1: ways that our body uses to figure out like where
13:21
Speaker 1: we are and what we're doing that depend on gravity.
13:24
Speaker 1: And so we don't actually understand space adaptation sickness super well,
13:28
Speaker 1: but we know that when you go up in space
13:30
Speaker 1: sometimes it turns your stomach. Some people are fine. Some
13:33
Speaker 1: people are very much not fine, and they puke, and
13:36
Speaker 1: some people get over it fast. Some people take a
13:38
Speaker 1: few days. On Skylab, they didn't want to admit that
13:42
Speaker 1: one of the guys puked, and so he puked and
13:45
Speaker 1: then he threw it away, and they tried to pretend
13:47
Speaker 1: it didn't happen, and then they got caught. They recorded
13:50
Speaker 1: their conversation because everything in space is recorded. But anyway,
13:52
Speaker 1: so it's a bit of a point of pride if
13:55
Speaker 1: you go to space and you don't yack. But I
13:57
Speaker 1: think a lot of people do yack that in on
13:59
Speaker 1: the parabolic flat.
14:00
Speaker 2: Well, I feel bad for Cosmo on Titav because he
14:02
Speaker 2: is a first in human history. Right, he's the first
14:04
Speaker 2: person to yack in space, but nobody knows his name.
14:07
Speaker 1: It's hard being second. I think buzz Aldrin was really
14:10
Speaker 1: mad that Neil Armstrong was going to go out first,
14:12
Speaker 1: because he knew that the first person to go out,
14:14
Speaker 1: you're gonna remember that person's name before you remember the
14:16
Speaker 1: second person's name.
14:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, but Titov was the first to do something, at
14:19
Speaker 2: least right the first space. He act like that's a thing, right,
14:22
Speaker 2: that should be in the book.
14:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you know, not all firsts need to go
14:25
Speaker 1: down in history, like I'm the first wienersmith because my
14:29
Speaker 1: paperwork got processed first, but no one cares. Not all
14:33
Speaker 1: first needs to be celebrated. But so that things got
14:35
Speaker 1: better pretty quick. So like those tubes, as you noted,
14:38
Speaker 1: it's kind of gross and not like satisfying and fun
14:41
Speaker 1: to eat pastes from a tube. And so during Gemini
14:45
Speaker 1: and Apollo, they were going to be on there for longer,
14:47
Speaker 1: so they were trying to figure out some options that
14:49
Speaker 1: would be more exciting. But there's a lot of problems
14:51
Speaker 1: to solve. So like, okay, if you're gonna send astronauts
14:53
Speaker 1: to the Moon, they've got enough stuff to worry about
14:56
Speaker 1: without getting like food sickness, and so you need to
14:59
Speaker 1: make sure that the fo to sterile and it's not
15:01
Speaker 1: going to give them food poisoning. Is they already worried about
15:03
Speaker 1: space adaptation sickness? You don't refrigerators or freezers or stoves,
15:09
Speaker 1: at least not on Apollo or Gemini. Iss now has
15:12
Speaker 1: a freezer, they got one in twenty twenty, but those
15:14
Speaker 1: things are energetically expensive and heavy. You also need to
15:17
Speaker 1: make the food light, so on Apollo, they freeze dried
15:21
Speaker 1: a bunch of stuff, so essentially, you like you freeze
15:24
Speaker 1: it and then you heat it up in a vacuum
15:26
Speaker 1: to try to get all the water out, and now
15:27
Speaker 1: it weighs less. And the fuel cells on Apollo produced
15:31
Speaker 1: water as sort of a byproduct of the process where
15:34
Speaker 1: they were making power, and you'd use that water to
15:37
Speaker 1: rehydrate your food. Apparently it had a little bit of
15:39
Speaker 1: a funky taste, which is an ideal, but it saved
15:42
Speaker 1: on mass.
15:43
Speaker 2: But is it a challenge to make shelf sable food
15:45
Speaker 2: that's going to be good for days or weeks. One
15:48
Speaker 2: of our listener comments was noting that we are pretty
15:50
Speaker 2: good at making processed food these days.
15:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're pretty good at making processed food, but a
15:54
Speaker 1: lot of that processed food isn't lasgna that's good for
15:58
Speaker 1: nine months, two weeks, so like the longest trip to
16:02
Speaker 1: the Moon, it was like two or three weeks or something.
16:04
Speaker 1: So we're pretty good. And actually they worked with Pillsbury
16:07
Speaker 1: because Pillsbury makes shelf stable foods, and so they created
16:10
Speaker 1: some shelf stable foods for the Apollo program. So yeah,
16:13
Speaker 1: it's not too hard to make it for a couple
16:14
Speaker 1: of weeks. When you get to the iss era and
16:17
Speaker 1: when you start to think about Mars, it gets way
16:19
Speaker 1: more complicated. But during the Apollo era it was pretty straightforward.
16:22
Speaker 1: So they did a lot of this freeze drying, or
16:24
Speaker 1: they do like what's called intermediate moisture foods, which are
16:27
Speaker 1: essentially like Eminem's. They've got some moisture in them, but
16:30
Speaker 1: there's shelf stable. So we're gonna send those man.
16:32
Speaker 2: Food chemists have the grossest names for things, you know,
16:35
Speaker 2: intermediate moisture foods. That does not sound like something I
16:38
Speaker 2: want to eat at all.
16:39
Speaker 1: No, you feel like you should match them up with
16:41
Speaker 1: like chefs or something, and like everything should be named
16:43
Speaker 1: something that could go on a menu. Well, and since
16:46
Speaker 1: I'm a biologist and we managed to make it almost
16:48
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes into the episode, it's time to talk about poop,
16:51
Speaker 1: all right. So the Apollo and the Gemini capsules were
16:55
Speaker 1: really small, Like imagine being in a van with like
16:57
Speaker 1: two or three people and there's no cordoned off spaces
17:01
Speaker 1: where you can get privacy, right, Yeah, And so when
17:04
Speaker 1: you need toop, you need to just be like, turn around, guys,
17:07
Speaker 1: here it comes. And I'm sure they can smell it
17:10
Speaker 1: into small space. And so the foods they tried to
17:14
Speaker 1: make the foods quote low residue, which essentially means not
17:18
Speaker 1: a lot of fiber. And there were actually some astronauts
17:21
Speaker 1: who would try to go their whole mission without pooping.
17:25
Speaker 1: Pooping was not just embarrassing, but like unpleasant. So they
17:28
Speaker 1: had these little baggies with an adhesive at the top
17:31
Speaker 1: that you would use the adhesive to stick to your heinie.
17:34
Speaker 1: Sorry about all the hand motions that you can see
17:36
Speaker 1: that no one else can save.
17:37
Speaker 2: Because it sounds like you're implying that gravity is an
17:39
Speaker 2: important part of this human process. Yeah, yep, and so
17:43
Speaker 2: that it's substantially different when you're out there floating. The
17:46
Speaker 2: stuff doesn't just get squeezed out. You're saying like it's
17:48
Speaker 2: got to get pulled out, Like every time I'm sitting
17:50
Speaker 2: on the toilet. You're saying, the Earth is doing a
17:51
Speaker 2: significant amount of work on me.
17:53
Speaker 1: Yes, you should thank the Earth every morning or whenever,
17:55
Speaker 1: I know, we're all very regular, whatever, you should say,
17:57
Speaker 1: thank you Earth for assisting me in this process to partnership.
18:00
Speaker 1: That's right, right, So, because things don't go in the direction,
18:02
Speaker 1: it's supposed to. There's a finger cut in the bag
18:05
Speaker 1: to help you push things in the right direction.
18:07
Speaker 2: Okay, Oh, nobody wants to see that hand gesture of
18:10
Speaker 2: the I'm so.
18:12
Speaker 1: Sorry, Daniel, I can't help it. So anyway, it's gross.
18:15
Speaker 1: So Frank Borman, he was supposed to spend two weeks
18:19
Speaker 1: orbiting the Earth with Jim Level, and he made it
18:21
Speaker 1: eight days. Maybe it was nine days. He was going
18:24
Speaker 1: to try to not poop at all, and at one point,
18:26
Speaker 1: I guess he turned to Jim Level and said, well,
18:27
Speaker 1: this is it, Jim, And Jim was like, you got
18:29
Speaker 1: five days left. But anyway, he couldn't make it.
18:32
Speaker 2: Well, let me ask you, as a biologist, how long
18:34
Speaker 2: can the human go without producing number two and still
18:38
Speaker 2: be healthy? I mean, eight days does not sound healthy.
18:42
Speaker 1: No, it does not sound healthy. I don't know. There
18:44
Speaker 1: aren't consequences like I've heard of people passing out. I've
18:48
Speaker 1: visited the Motor Museum in Philadelphia and got my picture
18:51
Speaker 1: taken next to the mega colon, which was the colon
18:54
Speaker 1: from someone who just was not regular enough. But anyway,
18:57
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer exactly, but you should not
18:59
Speaker 1: eat too many low residue foods.
19:02
Speaker 2: Well, according to my rapid googling, the record is forty
19:05
Speaker 2: five days, but you don't get a trophy.
19:07
Speaker 1: They now that's another first that history is not going
19:11
Speaker 1: to remember apparently. H So we've talked a bit about
19:15
Speaker 1: the kinds of foods that they came up with, so
19:18
Speaker 1: you'd freeze dry. For the Gemini missions, all they had
19:21
Speaker 1: to rehydrate the food was cold water, and it was
19:24
Speaker 1: considered this like huge upgrade in the Apollo mission when
19:27
Speaker 1: you could rehydrate your food and it was a little
19:29
Speaker 1: bit warm, and so like imagine eating rehydrated sort of
19:32
Speaker 1: lukewarm food for two weeks. Not fun.
19:36
Speaker 2: And so we're back in the sixties still, right, What
19:38
Speaker 2: kind of technology do we have now that they didn't
19:41
Speaker 2: have then, Like they had microwaves in the sixties.
19:43
Speaker 1: I don't know if they had microwaves in the sixties,
19:45
Speaker 1: but I don't think they have microwaves on the ISS
19:49
Speaker 1: now even I think they use like a little convection
19:51
Speaker 1: oven that heats things up, but not even that much.
19:54
Speaker 1: And then they also have another hot water nozzle to
19:59
Speaker 1: rehydrate their food. Because these freeze dried foods are still
20:03
Speaker 1: going to space.
20:04
Speaker 2: Well, I guess that makes sense. If you're pulling most
20:06
Speaker 2: of the water out of this, then a microwave is
20:07
Speaker 2: not going to work on it, because a microwave mostly
20:09
Speaker 2: heats the water in the food because the resonance of
20:11
Speaker 2: those electromagnetic waves excites the water molecules. So if you
20:15
Speaker 2: put something dry into a microwave, it doesn't really get
20:17
Speaker 2: heated up very effectively. Microwaves were invented in the sixties.
20:20
Speaker 2: I think they were commercially available in the mid sixties.
20:23
Speaker 2: But then it doesn't make sense to include them in
20:25
Speaker 2: space anyway.
20:26
Speaker 1: Good time for humanity. I like microwaves. One of the
20:29
Speaker 1: other things that they had were these cubes that were
20:32
Speaker 1: like covered in like an oil. So you don't want
20:34
Speaker 1: crumbs in space. You know, everything floats when you're in space,
20:38
Speaker 1: and so if you've got crumbs, they can like get
20:39
Speaker 1: into the electrical equipment and they can cause shorts. And
20:43
Speaker 1: John Young got into a ton of trouble because he
20:45
Speaker 1: snuck a corn beef sandwich onto one of his flights.
20:49
Speaker 2: How do you sneak a corn beef sandwich? Like, do
20:52
Speaker 2: I want to ask where he was hiding it.
20:53
Speaker 1: I don't know where he snuck his in particular, but
20:56
Speaker 1: I do know that a board mirror. The cosmouts have
20:59
Speaker 1: a tradition where when they're on their way out for launch,
21:03
Speaker 1: they get out of the van that's bringing them to
21:05
Speaker 1: bike a ore where the rockets are going to take off,
21:07
Speaker 1: and they pee on the tire. Because that's what ury
21:09
Speaker 1: Gagaron did because it was like his last chance to
21:11
Speaker 1: like take off the spacesuit. And so that is supposed
21:15
Speaker 1: to be a time when people sort of squirrel away
21:17
Speaker 1: items that they're maybe not supposed to have, but they
21:20
Speaker 1: want to take on anyway. So little bottles of liquor
21:22
Speaker 1: have been brought on to the International Space Station by
21:25
Speaker 1: storing them in your spacesuit when you like go out
21:28
Speaker 1: to take your pee.
21:28
Speaker 2: Somebody slip to a corny I don't understand how this works.
21:33
Speaker 1: I don't know either. He got in a lot of trouble,
21:35
Speaker 1: Like literally there was a congressional hearing because if the
21:39
Speaker 1: crumbs from his sandwich had messed up that mission. Can
21:41
Speaker 1: you imagine how much taxpayer money would have been flushed
21:45
Speaker 1: down the toilet.
21:45
Speaker 2: The most expensive corn beef sandwich in.
21:48
Speaker 1: History exactly, yes, right right, And this was part of
21:50
Speaker 1: the Cold War. Can you imagine if we had lost
21:52
Speaker 1: the Cold War over a corn beef sandwich. Anyway, Steaks
21:56
Speaker 1: were high.
21:58
Speaker 2: Steaks were high.
21:58
Speaker 1: Now, Oh, I did all that was so great and
22:01
Speaker 1: I didn't even know I was doing it.
22:02
Speaker 2: Literally, corn beef sandwich in space is stas or high.
22:06
Speaker 2: That pun works in so many levels.
22:07
Speaker 1: I'm so clever and I don't even know it. All right,
22:10
Speaker 1: But you know what, So I think we should leave
22:12
Speaker 1: the audience on tender hooks for a second. We are
22:16
Speaker 1: going to do a little bit of myth busting about
22:18
Speaker 1: food and space when we get back from the commercials.
22:21
Speaker 2: So finish that corn beef sandwich, everybody. You are going
22:24
Speaker 2: to launch into a new era of understanding.
22:27
Speaker 1: Amazing, all right, So, Daniel, how many times do you
22:46
Speaker 1: think that freeze dried astronaut ice cream that gets sold
22:50
Speaker 1: at all of the air and space museums. How many
22:52
Speaker 1: times has that gone to space?
22:54
Speaker 2: Oh? Man? I mean, I imagine you want to send
22:56
Speaker 2: something yummy with the astronauts, and you want to send
22:59
Speaker 2: something light. I don't know why you wouldn't send it
23:01
Speaker 2: every single time. I'm gonna guess every single time they
23:03
Speaker 2: go to space they get ice cream. They deserve it.
23:06
Speaker 1: I think you're probably playing along with me. But that's great.
23:09
Speaker 1: I love it. It's never gone to space. No, I'm
23:12
Speaker 1: in one. It's awful, like only not smart children, but
23:16
Speaker 1: it Have you ever opened up those bags? Like it's
23:20
Speaker 1: all little particles that sort of go floating out and
23:23
Speaker 1: make a giant mess. I mean, like even in gravity,
23:25
Speaker 1: those things make a gigantic mess.
23:27
Speaker 2: I loved astronaut ice cream. I can't believe you're down
23:30
Speaker 2: on it. Every time we went to the planetarium or whatever,
23:32
Speaker 2: I got astronaut ice cream. It was such a treat
23:35
Speaker 2: and like, okay, it's not as good as real ice cream,
23:38
Speaker 2: but it made me feel like an astronaut.
23:40
Speaker 1: I did not realize how much conflicts this food episode
23:43
Speaker 1: was going to cause between the two of us. I
23:46
Speaker 1: hate that stuff, but fine, good for you. A dairy
23:50
Speaker 1: based food cube has flown. Oh but not this freeze
23:55
Speaker 1: dried ice cream.
23:56
Speaker 2: So what's the origin of it? Is it just all marketing?
23:59
Speaker 1: Yeah? Worked on you.
24:01
Speaker 2: It actually did work. I mean not only did I
24:02
Speaker 2: buy it, but I enjoyed it more because I believed
24:05
Speaker 2: it had been in space. So yeah, it absolutely worked.
24:09
Speaker 1: All right, Well, great, there's a market for everything, all right?
24:12
Speaker 2: All right, Well, what about tang. Are you gonna tell
24:13
Speaker 2: me the tang was never enjoyed by astronauts?
24:16
Speaker 1: Well, I mean maybe it was enjoyed by astronauts, but
24:18
Speaker 1: it wasn't made for astronauts. Often when I'm giving talks
24:21
Speaker 1: about space and I go into my like negative Nelly
24:24
Speaker 1: speech about you know, people say we should go to
24:25
Speaker 1: space for this reason, but that's a bad reason. People
24:28
Speaker 1: will always say, but like, oh, but what about all
24:29
Speaker 1: the spinoff technologies, like we wouldn't have tang if it
24:33
Speaker 1: wasn't for space. I can't tell you how many times
24:35
Speaker 1: I've heard this.
24:36
Speaker 2: That's their go to, not like velcro, tephlin, no minaturization
24:40
Speaker 2: or anything teflon.
24:41
Speaker 1: He I think, has you know, captured the popular.
24:43
Speaker 2: Consciousness the power of marketing?
24:46
Speaker 1: Yes? Amen. So Tang was made by a food scientist
24:49
Speaker 1: named William Mitchell. Everybody should know this guy's name if
24:52
Speaker 1: you grew up in the nineties. So he also came
24:55
Speaker 1: up with cool whip, which was like a staple in
24:58
Speaker 1: my house in the nineties, which like instant nostalgia there
25:03
Speaker 1: they still exist somehow, and instant jello.
25:06
Speaker 2: Wow, this guy should get the Nobel Prize.
25:08
Speaker 1: For Food Science, or he should get punished in some
25:10
Speaker 1: way because like adult Kelly dislikes all of those food items.
25:13
Speaker 1: But anyway, I mentioned that they get their water from
25:15
Speaker 1: those fuel cells and they have a kind of like, uh,
25:18
Speaker 1: not great taste. So tang was a like easy way
25:21
Speaker 1: you could get the packets and sort of hook them
25:23
Speaker 1: up to the waterline or whatever and then mix it
25:26
Speaker 1: up and then it would kind of cover up the
25:27
Speaker 1: taste from the fuel cells. And some of the astronauts
25:31
Speaker 1: loved it, some of them hated it. In fact, buzz Aldron,
25:34
Speaker 1: in a nineteen eighty eight interview on NPR said tang sucks.
25:40
Speaker 1: If you go to some bars, you can get a
25:42
Speaker 1: drink called the buzz Aldron that has tang in it.
25:45
Speaker 1: And I don't know if that was meant as like
25:47
Speaker 1: an insult to buzz or what.
25:48
Speaker 2: So you're saying tang was popular among astronauts because it
25:51
Speaker 2: tasted better than like machine water.
25:53
Speaker 1: Yes, and even then not all of them liked it.
25:57
Speaker 1: But again, I loved tang when I was a kid too.
25:59
Speaker 2: All right, but this is not really food for space, right,
26:01
Speaker 2: this is food connected to space through the genius of marketing.
26:05
Speaker 2: Let's get back to talking about how we actually feed
26:08
Speaker 2: astronauts in space. You took us through the sixties and
26:10
Speaker 2: seventies when it was basically like an extended version of
26:13
Speaker 2: fighter pilot goo. What about like in the seventies and eighties,
26:17
Speaker 2: when we started spending more time in space, what did
26:19
Speaker 2: the food industry wizards whip up for those astronauts.
26:22
Speaker 1: Well, so the seventies and the eighties is when we
26:24
Speaker 1: started sending up space stations and people were staying up
26:27
Speaker 1: there for weeks and then months, and now we're up
26:29
Speaker 1: to years or I think the longest day was four
26:32
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty seven days. They don't have to bring
26:35
Speaker 1: all of the food with them at once. There's resupply
26:38
Speaker 1: ships that can come, and when those resupply ships come,
26:40
Speaker 1: they bring fresh food, and it's like hugely popular. But
26:43
Speaker 1: we're still doing freeze dried foods. We're still doing intermediate
26:47
Speaker 1: moisture foods. But there's just like a lot more options now.
26:50
Speaker 1: So on the International Space Station, and this is jumping
26:52
Speaker 1: ahead in time a bit. There's over two hundred options
26:55
Speaker 1: now and so a lot of them, Like on the
26:57
Speaker 1: cosmonaut side, it's like cans of jelly fish. On the
27:01
Speaker 1: US side, Oh, there's a shrimp cocktail I think is
27:05
Speaker 1: very popular. I'm not personally a shrimp person myself. Any
27:08
Speaker 1: animal that you need to deepoop before you eat it
27:10
Speaker 1: is not on my plate personally.
27:12
Speaker 2: Also, I try it to eat shrimp and others shell
27:14
Speaker 2: foods if some very far from the shore. And I
27:16
Speaker 2: feel like up in space definitely qualifies as like really
27:20
Speaker 2: not near.
27:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, not near it at all. Agreed. Agreed. So when
27:24
Speaker 1: the US sent up Skylub in nineteen seventy three, that
27:28
Speaker 1: was like maybe the height of dining in space. So
27:31
Speaker 1: they sent up a freezer and a fridge, and I
27:36
Speaker 1: think that we have a fridge, but not a freezer
27:39
Speaker 1: on the ISS, although maybe we have a fridge for
27:41
Speaker 1: like scientific supplies. And I've heard that every once in
27:43
Speaker 1: a while food ends up in the science freezers on
27:45
Speaker 1: the ISS, which is a big no no on Earth.
27:48
Speaker 1: But you know, you do what you got to do
27:50
Speaker 1: in space.
27:51
Speaker 2: You know. In my house, like at home, my wife
27:53
Speaker 2: is a biologist, so of course we have science stuff
27:56
Speaker 2: in our freezer, including unmentionables from various members to the family.
28:00
Speaker 2: So she's like, don't open those brown paper bags unless
28:03
Speaker 2: you really want to see something you don't want to see.
28:05
Speaker 1: Oh, man, I know I.
28:07
Speaker 2: Keep objecting to that. I'm like, look at in your lab.
28:10
Speaker 2: You have a food freezer and a science freezer. Why
28:12
Speaker 2: can't we just make this a food freezer.
28:14
Speaker 1: Oh I cannot wait to tell that to my husband
28:17
Speaker 1: because he's always like, you have infected fish brains in
28:20
Speaker 1: our freezer? Or what is this dead bird doing in
28:23
Speaker 1: the freezer? But we've never had bags of feces in
28:26
Speaker 1: our freezer. And I feel like Zach doesn't appreciate me
28:29
Speaker 1: as much as he should. But you know what I
28:32
Speaker 1: thought was fun on the cosmonauts of boards Salute one,
28:35
Speaker 1: which was the first base station to ever go up.
28:37
Speaker 1: Apparently they had first breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
28:44
Speaker 1: So you would say, they're wasting three meals worth of time, guys,
28:48
Speaker 1: Whereas I like them even more knowing this, Although it
28:52
Speaker 1: didn't the Lord of the Rings. Didn't the Hobbits have
28:54
Speaker 1: first breakfast and second breakfast anyway?
28:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, very likely, And Hommits are not famous Lord of
29:00
Speaker 2: the Rings for being like very effective or getting stuff done.
29:03
Speaker 2: You know, they spent most of their time cooking meals
29:06
Speaker 2: and cleaning up after meals. It was a whole day,
29:08
Speaker 2: you know, first breakfast, second breakfast eleven z's like two z's.
29:12
Speaker 1: I mean, that was kind of the point they save
29:14
Speaker 1: the world, you monster, Ah, a lot.
29:19
Speaker 2: Of people died before they saved the world. If they
29:20
Speaker 2: just skipped breakfast, you know, they could have saved a
29:22
Speaker 2: whole lot of people from the agony.
29:24
Speaker 1: Maybe they wouldn't have had enough energy, Daniel, I'm getting
29:28
Speaker 1: choked up just thinking about it. My voice caught. So
29:31
Speaker 1: I was reading, you know a lot of stories about
29:33
Speaker 1: what cosmonauts in space have been eating over the years,
29:36
Speaker 1: and one of the things they really love for fresh
29:38
Speaker 1: food that I read over and over again is onions.
29:42
Speaker 1: And in fact, the first birthday in space, it was
29:45
Speaker 1: Victor Pitsev's thirty eighth birthday aboard Salute one. They celebrated
29:49
Speaker 1: with an onion and a lemon that had been smuggled
29:51
Speaker 1: on board for that particular occasion, and they all like
29:54
Speaker 1: bit into it and we're particularly excited about it, like.
29:57
Speaker 2: A raw, fresh onion.
29:58
Speaker 1: As far as I can tell, that's what happened.
30:01
Speaker 2: Man, Your standards must really plummet if you spend a
30:03
Speaker 2: little bit of time in space, if you're like an
30:05
Speaker 2: onion is a.
30:06
Speaker 1: Delicacy, or if you live in the Soviet Union, and
30:09
Speaker 1: things were I think it was even worse in the nineties.
30:12
Speaker 1: But I don't think things were great then, but I
30:14
Speaker 1: guess then it was Russia.
30:15
Speaker 2: But it sounds like there's a big step up from
30:16
Speaker 2: the sixties to the seventies when we have like space
30:19
Speaker 2: stations and now we have options and different kinds of
30:22
Speaker 2: food and all sorts of stuff. What exactly was it
30:25
Speaker 2: that enabled that? Was it the freezers and the heaters
30:27
Speaker 2: on board, or is just having more time and space
30:30
Speaker 2: meant people had to devote more energy to making the
30:33
Speaker 2: food actually good for the astronauts.
30:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think if you're going to have a program
30:36
Speaker 1: where people are going to be up there for months,
30:37
Speaker 1: then you're just kind of forced to do better and
30:40
Speaker 1: you're forced to make sure that your foods last longer.
30:43
Speaker 1: And they experimented with refrigerators and the trade offs between
30:46
Speaker 1: how much energy and space they take, and so yeah,
30:49
Speaker 1: I think it was just the need to make things
30:51
Speaker 1: last longer. So, like we start using the Space Shuttle
30:53
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty one, it sticks around for like twenty
30:57
Speaker 1: thirty something years, but those missions like two to three weeks,
31:01
Speaker 1: and so they sometimes used military meals that were called
31:05
Speaker 1: MREs or meals ready to eat, and so it's like, well,
31:08
Speaker 1: why reinvent the wheel if we've got something that can
31:11
Speaker 1: already work. So if you're only going up for a
31:12
Speaker 1: couple weeks, you don't have to be fancy. Although those
31:15
Speaker 1: MRIs were apparently awful. I talked to someone who said
31:18
Speaker 1: that they're known as meals rarely edible or meals requiring
31:24
Speaker 1: enemas because of their low fiber content. So here we
31:28
Speaker 1: are again.
31:29
Speaker 2: But if you're going to be up there in space
31:31
Speaker 2: for a long time, can't you grow some food? I mean,
31:34
Speaker 2: if we have like a basically a permanent space colony,
31:36
Speaker 2: we have a space station, it's up there all the time,
31:39
Speaker 2: is it feasible to have a little bit of a
31:41
Speaker 2: garden and grow some fresh food?
31:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, And there have been some experiments. I think there's
31:45
Speaker 1: an experiment called veggie, and I can't remember if that's
31:47
Speaker 1: like a tortured acronym of some sort or they just
31:49
Speaker 1: decided to call it veggie. But so, like, one of
31:51
Speaker 1: the problems with growing food in space is that, like
31:54
Speaker 1: water tends to form like bubbles, and because of surface tension,
31:58
Speaker 1: it kind of sticks together, and so when you're trying
32:00
Speaker 1: to get roots that grow out to like have a
32:04
Speaker 1: lot of surface area connections between the waters and the
32:07
Speaker 1: nutrients and stuff, it can be hard because the water
32:10
Speaker 1: tends to sort of like ball up in one spot
32:12
Speaker 1: and it's not necessarily interacting with the roots the way
32:15
Speaker 1: you want it to. And so they've had to figure
32:18
Speaker 1: out some various ways to like you know, get the lighting,
32:20
Speaker 1: get the water, get the nutrients. But they have been
32:23
Speaker 1: able to grow food in space. To go back to
32:25
Speaker 1: the onions on Solute six, there was an experiment with
32:27
Speaker 1: onions that they were supposed to do, and the cosmonauts
32:30
Speaker 1: pretended the onions got lost so that they could eat
32:32
Speaker 1: them themselves, so they ate them. But we've grown I think,
32:37
Speaker 1: like mustard greens, maybe kale mazuka. There have been greens
32:42
Speaker 1: that have been grown in space and consumed in space,
32:45
Speaker 1: and apparently the act of growing these plants is like
32:48
Speaker 1: a huge mental health improvement for the people who tend them,
32:52
Speaker 1: like I guess they you know, being near living things.
32:55
Speaker 1: As a biologist, this isn't surprising to me, but being
32:57
Speaker 1: near living things is just like really great for mental health.
33:00
Speaker 1: But the shuttle is when we got some pretty cool
33:03
Speaker 1: food advances. So the Shuttle is the first time. So,
33:06
Speaker 1: like I love carbs, you probably don't even eat carbs
33:09
Speaker 1: for whatever.
33:10
Speaker 2: No, No, I love carbs. I'm pro carb, one hundred
33:13
Speaker 2: percent pro.
33:13
Speaker 1: Cos I'm glad we're finding some common ground we can
33:15
Speaker 1: agree on. Bread has a bunch of crumbs, and crumbs
33:18
Speaker 1: are a problem.
33:19
Speaker 2: Crumbs are not a problem for me.
33:20
Speaker 1: I love crumbs, but you wouldn't want them in your equipment.
33:23
Speaker 2: No. This is one reason why I'm not a fighter
33:27
Speaker 2: pilot or an astronaut, because I'm pro crumb.
33:29
Speaker 1: Okay, So there was a shuttle flight where we had
33:31
Speaker 1: the first Mexican astronaut. This was payload specialist Rudolpha Vella,
33:37
Speaker 1: and he was up there with astronaut Mary Cleeve, and
33:39
Speaker 1: they had suggested, what if you bring tortillas up because
33:43
Speaker 1: tortillas are like edible plates that don't have a lot
33:47
Speaker 1: of crumbs. And after that point, tortillas are like a
33:52
Speaker 1: staple in space now like almost everything is eaten on
33:54
Speaker 1: top of a tortilla in space. And for a while
33:57
Speaker 1: they were using Taco Bell tortillas because Tago Bell makes
34:02
Speaker 1: tortillas that are shelf stable for nine months knowing it's
34:06
Speaker 1: shelf stable that long, you're like, oh, it's not food,
34:08
Speaker 1: is it? What is that? Actually?
34:10
Speaker 2: No, the food science is probably a name for it.
34:12
Speaker 2: You know, it's like a flattened circular food product or whatever.
34:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, But the Russians they're not so into tortillas. Instead,
34:19
Speaker 1: they've made these tiny, little bite sized breads that don't
34:22
Speaker 1: shed a lot of crumbs. And I guess they're so
34:25
Speaker 1: tiny that they're called Barbie breads because you can imagine
34:28
Speaker 1: like a little Barbie using one in her little dream house.
34:32
Speaker 1: But you know, one of the interesting things about space
34:34
Speaker 1: is that, like, okay, so we've talked about all these
34:35
Speaker 1: freeze dried foods and foods in cans that frankly don't
34:38
Speaker 1: sound particularly delicious to me. But it seems, for reasons
34:41
Speaker 1: we don't totally understand, to be hard to actually taste
34:45
Speaker 1: things in space. And there's a couple different explanations for this,
34:49
Speaker 1: but astronauts regularly complain that like food is way less flavorful.
34:53
Speaker 1: One of the ideas is that you're up in space,
34:55
Speaker 1: you're in free fall, your fluids are sort of moving
34:58
Speaker 1: up towards your head, and if you've ever been congested
35:03
Speaker 1: or had like a sinus infection, and that it's all congested,
35:06
Speaker 1: maybe you notice that food tastes less flavorful at that point. So,
35:09
Speaker 1: like a lot of flavor isn't just about our taste buds.
35:12
Speaker 1: It's about the act of like smelling the food that
35:15
Speaker 1: we're eating also, So if you're all like congested, you're
35:17
Speaker 1: losing the smell parts that brings us such joy when
35:20
Speaker 1: we eat. But then another idea is that like a
35:22
Speaker 1: lot of that food is like in a bag that
35:24
Speaker 1: you added water to, so you can't really smell it anyway, right,
35:27
Speaker 1: because you're just like drinking it through a straw at
35:30
Speaker 1: the beginning. So they don't really know why food tastes
35:33
Speaker 1: less flavorful, but many astronauts report.
35:35
Speaker 2: This seems like they should invent something where there's like
35:38
Speaker 2: a tube that goes to your mouth and another one
35:40
Speaker 2: that goes to your nose so you can like simultaneously
35:42
Speaker 2: smell it and eat. It seems like the kind of
35:44
Speaker 2: thing NASA would come up with, right, come on, engineers,
35:46
Speaker 2: get with the programs.
35:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're not working on the important questions, are they. No.
35:50
Speaker 1: I was at a restaurant once and I was watching
35:52
Speaker 1: a woman she was like talking to someone, and she
35:54
Speaker 1: went to bring her cup with a straw in it
35:58
Speaker 1: up to her mouth, but she wasn't paying attention to
36:00
Speaker 1: the straw went up her nose and like shoved her
36:02
Speaker 1: head back, and then she looked around to see if
36:04
Speaker 1: anyone had seen, and then she saw I was kind
36:06
Speaker 1: of chuckling, and I was like.
36:08
Speaker 2: Maybe it's okay, You're like, don't worry. I'm a biologist.
36:11
Speaker 2: I'm just observing you.
36:12
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. So I'm not sure that I
36:14
Speaker 1: would want a straw in my nose, I guess, is
36:16
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. It's a weird, awkward, embarrassing situation.
36:20
Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't want to eat cardboard for every single meal.
36:22
Speaker 2: I mean, I think if you're not tasting your food,
36:25
Speaker 2: then like why are you even eating it?
36:27
Speaker 1: So they try to get around this, like they've had
36:28
Speaker 1: celebrity chefs create extra flavorful meals, and then things like
36:33
Speaker 1: taco sauce packets are so popular that on one flight
36:37
Speaker 1: they were actually like used as currency. So you'd be like,
36:40
Speaker 1: all right, I don't want to clean the toilets today,
36:43
Speaker 1: so I will pay you three taco sauce packets if
36:46
Speaker 1: you clean the toilet.
36:47
Speaker 2: This like a prison economy. Just see what life is
36:49
Speaker 2: like up there. You know, it's like I'm trading like
36:52
Speaker 2: two packets of cigarettes and a minute on the fatone.
36:54
Speaker 2: You know this is crazy.
36:56
Speaker 1: Well, and the bar is so low. Like Shannon Lucid,
36:58
Speaker 1: so she was on Mirror, which was a Soviet Russian
37:00
Speaker 1: space station. She lost a shoe once and she couldn't
37:03
Speaker 1: find it, like space stations are notoriously cluttered and hard
37:05
Speaker 1: to find things, So she offered the guy on the
37:08
Speaker 1: mission that she was on. There were two guys, and
37:10
Speaker 1: she said, all right, whoever finds my shoe, you get
37:13
Speaker 1: your own bag of green jello. And immediately both of
37:18
Speaker 1: the guys were like, we gotta find it. One of
37:21
Speaker 1: them found it. He got his own bag of green jello,
37:23
Speaker 1: and they had a fridge on Mirror so that he
37:25
Speaker 1: was able to like have it for himself. But apparently,
37:28
Speaker 1: like the jello was a big bonding experience and so
37:31
Speaker 1: like they would make jello, like every Friday, they'd all
37:34
Speaker 1: get spoons. They'd share it together. So Jello's like a
37:36
Speaker 1: good space food because it sticks and stays in the bag,
37:39
Speaker 1: so you can just like spoon it out, and a
37:41
Speaker 1: lot of astronauts will report that actually having meals together
37:45
Speaker 1: and sharing food is like one of the most impactful
37:48
Speaker 1: experiences they had. Like Leland Melvin has a book about
37:51
Speaker 1: being an astronaut, and he talks about how, you know,
37:54
Speaker 1: all these people from all these different countries were like
37:56
Speaker 1: sitting around a table. Some were floating above it, some
37:59
Speaker 1: were floating below, but they were all sharing a meal
38:01
Speaker 1: together looking down at Earth, and it was just like
38:03
Speaker 1: profound experience. So, yeah, food is so much more than
38:06
Speaker 1: just a way to keep these wishy meat bags moving on.
38:09
Speaker 2: It must really be an ancient thing sharing food, because frankly,
38:13
Speaker 2: I find it biologically weird that we sit around and
38:16
Speaker 2: have conversation at the same time as we're using our
38:18
Speaker 2: mouths for something else. Right, It's awkward. I'm sitting there,
38:21
Speaker 2: I'm eating, I'm also supposed to be talking, you know,
38:24
Speaker 2: Like the whole thing is kind of weird. It's some
38:26
Speaker 2: like bizarre ancient primal memory of like, you know, sharing
38:30
Speaker 2: food on the savannah or something.
38:31
Speaker 1: I think, you know, someone, I don't understand any of
38:33
Speaker 1: these opinions. You're sharing anal if.
38:36
Speaker 2: We're talking about eating and poop and wouldn't it make
38:38
Speaker 2: more biological sense for people to eat in private and
38:41
Speaker 2: then poop together, because then you're using your mouth for
38:43
Speaker 2: just one thing. You give me the weirdest look.
38:47
Speaker 1: You are supposed to come visit me in March, and
38:50
Speaker 1: I am thinking of rescinding the invitation.
38:55
Speaker 2: When a biologist thinks your poop comments are weird, then
38:57
Speaker 2: I guess you're over the line.
38:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've gone too far this. Let's back things up.
39:02
Speaker 2: Tell me more about this taco sauce in space, because
39:05
Speaker 2: are you telling me they used taco sauce so much
39:07
Speaker 2: it became like a condiment you could put on anything.
39:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, and mayonnaise is also very popular, although I don't
39:12
Speaker 1: think of mayonnaise as being super flavorful, but like, condiments
39:15
Speaker 1: are big in space for whatever reason. So we were
39:17
Speaker 1: talking about, you know, the cultural aspects of food. So
39:20
Speaker 1: throughout the different space eras, there have been different programs
39:24
Speaker 1: where folks from different cultures have come up and a
39:26
Speaker 1: lot of them try to bring some of their own
39:28
Speaker 1: food from home with them, and this is really exciting
39:31
Speaker 1: for the astronauts because they get a chance to try
39:33
Speaker 1: something new. And you know, things get pretty monotonous in space.
39:36
Speaker 1: But there is also like some cofflic so for example,
39:39
Speaker 1: they're supposed to send up fifty percent Russian food and
39:41
Speaker 1: fifty percent American food. And there was this experiment where
39:46
Speaker 1: diaries were taken from astronauts like every day that have
39:48
Speaker 1: to write this is what my day was like, this
39:50
Speaker 1: is how I felt, blah blah blah. And one of
39:52
Speaker 1: the people their diary entry was I have had many
39:56
Speaker 1: programmatic flights with the Russians about the inequality of Russians
40:00
Speaker 1: slash US foods supposed to be fifty to fifty. They
40:03
Speaker 1: have always had more Russian on board, using the rationale
40:06
Speaker 1: that people like Russian food better. That is bull.
40:13
Speaker 2: Cold war in space, Cold war in space.
40:16
Speaker 1: Oh all right, we're about to stop for a break,
40:19
Speaker 1: but folks should wonder while during the break, what was
40:23
Speaker 1: Swedish issa astronaut Christopher Fugla sang. Don't send me emails
40:28
Speaker 1: about that, sorry, guys, discouraged from bringing with him in
40:31
Speaker 1: space in two thousand and six that he really wanted
40:34
Speaker 1: to bring with him. We'll get back to it after
40:37
Speaker 1: the break.
40:38
Speaker 2: I'm guessing some stinky fish thing.
40:56
Speaker 1: So the question is Swedish astronaut he was coming to
41:01
Speaker 1: space in two thousand and six. What did he want
41:03
Speaker 1: to bring with him that he was discouraged from bringing
41:05
Speaker 1: Daniel guest stinky fish thing. So I think all fish stink.
41:09
Speaker 1: I hate the smaller fish, which is why that job
41:11
Speaker 1: where I had to jump into a dump truck full
41:13
Speaker 1: of dead fish for my master's degree was just so miserable.
41:15
Speaker 1: But actually, when the Japanese bring fish, the Russians bring fish,
41:19
Speaker 1: these are very popular meals. Maybe because they're more flavorful,
41:22
Speaker 1: Maybe it comes back to that. But no, this Swedish
41:24
Speaker 1: astronaut wanted to bring reindeer jerky, and there was concern
41:29
Speaker 1: that this would upset American children because.
41:34
Speaker 2: He's eating Rudolph.
41:35
Speaker 1: Exactly, He's eating Santa's reindeer. I'm not going to get
41:40
Speaker 1: Christmas presents for sure, And so instead he brought moose jerky. Anyway,
41:46
Speaker 1: international disaster averted. So what South Korean food do you
41:50
Speaker 1: think they had to bring?
41:51
Speaker 2: Kimchi?
41:51
Speaker 1: Of course, kim g of course, I can't say that
41:54
Speaker 1: I'm a kimchi fan personally. And your face says you
41:57
Speaker 1: like kimchi? Is that right?
42:00
Speaker 2: Is great? On everything? Oh my gosh, we're a big
42:02
Speaker 2: fan of pickle foods.
42:03
Speaker 3: In my life.
42:04
Speaker 1: You know, Zach really likes pickled food. So you two
42:06
Speaker 1: will have a great time when you visit. I'll stay
42:08
Speaker 1: somewhere else. But so, the South Koreans wanted to bring kimchi,
42:12
Speaker 1: and one of the food scientists in Korea who was
42:15
Speaker 1: working on the kimchi said, without kimchi, Koreans feel flabby.
42:20
Speaker 1: Not wanting a flabby astronaut.
42:22
Speaker 2: I think it's a big part of being Korean having kimchi. Yeah,
42:24
Speaker 2: you got to have it or you're not really eating.
42:26
Speaker 1: But I don't think I would have connected it with flabbiness.
42:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting.
42:30
Speaker 1: I wonder if that was like a lost in translation
42:32
Speaker 1: sort of thing. But so, one of the problems with
42:33
Speaker 1: kimchi is that kimchi uses bacteria in the fermentation process,
42:38
Speaker 1: and when NASA sends stuff up to space, they don't
42:41
Speaker 1: want any bacteria in there because food poisoning, comput tape
42:45
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, and so they had to try to
42:47
Speaker 1: find a way to like get kimchi part way through
42:48
Speaker 1: the fermentation process and then kill all the bacteria and
42:52
Speaker 1: still try to make it flavorful, and apparently it didn't
42:57
Speaker 1: really work. The Korean astronauts soyyan Yi said after radiation,
43:03
Speaker 1: because they had to radiate it to kill the bacteria.
43:05
Speaker 1: After radiation, the kimchi became so saggy it looked like
43:10
Speaker 1: it was one hundred years old. I cannot say it's
43:14
Speaker 1: really tasteful kimchi, but still I like it because I
43:17
Speaker 1: can feel my home, so you know.
43:19
Speaker 2: But they're not really making it sterile, right, I mean,
43:21
Speaker 2: if you were radiate foods, my microbiologist's wife would just
43:24
Speaker 2: tell me that you're enhancing the extremophiles, right, she.
43:27
Speaker 1: Should be a food scientist. Yeah, no, I don't know
43:29
Speaker 1: the answer. Yeah, maybe they killed it some other way. Also,
43:32
Speaker 1: maybe they irradiated it and then like ultra heat processed it.
43:35
Speaker 2: But is the concern that you're going to bring up
43:36
Speaker 2: some bacteria that's going to get people sick, that's the idea?
43:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. Well, we've pretty much gone over
43:42
Speaker 1: the history of food and space, Like, we figured a
43:44
Speaker 1: lot of stuff out. We've got ways to make food
43:47
Speaker 1: shelf stable, we've got some ways to make it not
43:50
Speaker 1: taste so bad. But everybody still definitely super excited when
43:53
Speaker 1: the fresh stuff comes up. But what party would be
43:57
Speaker 1: complete in space or otherwise without alcohol? So, first of all,
44:02
Speaker 1: I want to pitch this great book called Alcohol in
44:05
Speaker 1: Space by Chris Carberry. It's a super fun read about
44:09
Speaker 1: the past and future of alcohol in space. So, Daniels,
44:13
Speaker 1: when the first American drank in space? Do you know
44:15
Speaker 1: who or when it was?
44:17
Speaker 2: I have no idea who had the first drink in space.
44:20
Speaker 2: Was it connected to the person who first the acted
44:22
Speaker 2: in space?
44:22
Speaker 1: No? No, So actually I don't know if any of
44:26
Speaker 1: the Russians had drinks in space, quick tangent Here, In general,
44:31
Speaker 1: the Soviet space program is like way more okay with
44:33
Speaker 1: alcohol in space. In the US program, I think they
44:36
Speaker 1: like totally accept that the end of a stressful day
44:38
Speaker 1: is not a problem to have like a shot of something. Yeah,
44:41
Speaker 1: as far as I could tell, there have been no
44:43
Speaker 1: instances of drinking getting out of control, where like at
44:46
Speaker 1: the end of the day somebody had like the bottle
44:48
Speaker 1: instead of a shot. And in fact, there was an
44:50
Speaker 1: incident on Mirror where one of the oxygen canisters caught fire,
44:53
Speaker 1: and so there was like a fire in space that
44:55
Speaker 1: they were trying to put out. There was some concern
44:57
Speaker 1: that they were going to have to abandon the space station. Afterwards,
45:00
Speaker 1: the psychologists for the crew called up and they were like,
45:03
Speaker 1: we think you should all drink a little and so
45:07
Speaker 1: like relax. So like the Russians and the Soviets have
45:11
Speaker 1: always been way more comfortable. And I was talking to
45:13
Speaker 1: someone who works on life support systems for the ISS,
45:17
Speaker 1: and even though NASA is like, no, no alcohol, You're
45:19
Speaker 1: not supposed to have alcohol in space. The air quality
45:22
Speaker 1: is monitored to an incredible degree on the International Space
45:25
Speaker 1: Station because you know, like carbon dioxide needs to get
45:27
Speaker 1: removed by the system. And I guess every once in
45:29
Speaker 1: a while they pick up ethanol from the Russian side
45:31
Speaker 1: of the space station that they're not expecting, and so
45:35
Speaker 1: they think that's instances where like alcohol has been kind
45:37
Speaker 1: of snuck up into space even though NASA doesn't want it,
45:39
Speaker 1: because the Russians just don't care about it as much.
45:42
Speaker 1: First astronaut to have a drink in space, though, was
45:46
Speaker 1: buzz Aldrin.
45:47
Speaker 2: Of course, should have guessed good old Buzz.
45:50
Speaker 1: I am always hesitant to joke about buzz Aldrin and
45:54
Speaker 1: drinking because he admitted in one of his books that
45:56
Speaker 1: he has a problem with alcoholism. But he is also
46:00
Speaker 1: Catholic and he wanted to take communion when he landed
46:04
Speaker 1: on the moon, and so they landed on the moon,
46:05
Speaker 1: and before they got out of the lander, he had
46:08
Speaker 1: a little sip of wine. So wine was the first
46:11
Speaker 1: and I think only alcoholic beverage consumed on the moon.
46:14
Speaker 1: And then he had when I was a Catholic kid
46:16
Speaker 1: growing up, I called them christ crackers, but like the
46:18
Speaker 1: communion wafers. He took communion on the moon, and that
46:21
Speaker 1: was the first time anyone had alcohol on.
46:23
Speaker 2: The wh And was that the first communion off the
46:26
Speaker 2: surface of the earth.
46:27
Speaker 1: Well, that's a good question. That's the first communion that
46:29
Speaker 1: I read about. There was a passage from the Bible
46:32
Speaker 1: that was read during Apollo eight, which happened over Christmas.
46:37
Speaker 1: But for a long time buzz Aldrin didn't talk about
46:40
Speaker 1: taking communion because there was like a bit of a
46:42
Speaker 1: brew haha about like whether religious things should be happening
46:46
Speaker 1: in space when its taxpayer dollars in our country as
46:48
Speaker 1: separation of church and state, and so I think a
46:50
Speaker 1: lot of that stuff was hushed up and then not
46:53
Speaker 1: mentioned until later. So maybe something happened but it wasn't reported.
46:56
Speaker 1: But buzz Aldrin is the first instance that I know about. Wow,
47:00
Speaker 1: So here's another important question. This conversation has been kind
47:03
Speaker 1: of all over the place, but I'm having a lot
47:04
Speaker 1: of fun. Would you drink beer in space? And if so,
47:09
Speaker 1: why are why not? Do you drink beer at all?
47:11
Speaker 2: I'm a fan of beer, absolutely, I think beer is delicious,
47:14
Speaker 2: and in our house again, we're big fans of all
47:16
Speaker 2: kinds of fermented foods where ilied with the microbes and
47:18
Speaker 2: make our bread and our beer and our pickles and
47:20
Speaker 2: all sorts of stuff. I think I would like to
47:23
Speaker 2: enjoy beer in space, but I'd be worried a little
47:24
Speaker 2: bit about the burping. Do you burp in space? The
47:27
Speaker 2: same way? Now? I'm thinking about how the Earth plays
47:30
Speaker 2: a role in all of my biological functions, moving stuff
47:33
Speaker 2: up and down and all the round, And so I'd
47:37
Speaker 2: be worried about like a large gas bubble forming inside
47:39
Speaker 2: of me.
47:40
Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah, so burping in space is apparently very unpleasant.
47:44
Speaker 1: Those air bubbles often like bring food up with them also,
47:49
Speaker 1: So like Pepsi and Coke during the Cola Wars or whatever,
47:53
Speaker 1: they both sent their beverages up to space and space
47:55
Speaker 1: particular containers. I can't remember if they sent them up
47:57
Speaker 1: flat because they knew this was a proud or if
48:00
Speaker 1: it was really unpleasant for people, because but anyway, carbonated
48:03
Speaker 1: beverages not appreciated in space because burping in space is
48:07
Speaker 1: a very unpleasant experience.
48:09
Speaker 2: Well that's too bad, because burping on the surface of
48:10
Speaker 2: the Earth is really pretty great. And I'm a big
48:13
Speaker 2: fan of sparkling water and all sorts of other carbonated beverages.
48:16
Speaker 2: So what a big bum about going at I know.
48:18
Speaker 1: I totally agree. Like Zach is not in your camp
48:21
Speaker 1: at all. He thinks all bodily sounds should be kept
48:24
Speaker 1: to oneself. I don't know why he married a biologist.
48:27
Speaker 1: We all make mistakes, but like one of the nice
48:29
Speaker 1: things about Mars might be that if you did beer
48:33
Speaker 1: on Mars, that gravity might be enough to sort of
48:38
Speaker 1: make the problem of belching go away or at least
48:41
Speaker 1: be less unpleasant. So yeah, or rotating space stations, you know,
48:44
Speaker 1: So we have to solve these problems quickly so that
48:47
Speaker 1: we can start bringing beer to space.
48:49
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, because if humans are going to live in
48:52
Speaker 2: space or on other planets, we've got to figure out
48:54
Speaker 2: how to keep people happy. It's not just about survival,
48:57
Speaker 2: it's about living life and quality of life. We don't
49:00
Speaker 2: just want to eke out some primitive like existence where
49:03
Speaker 2: we're squeezing food tubes into each other's mouths. We want
49:06
Speaker 2: to actually have joy and fun out in space or
49:09
Speaker 2: on other planets.
49:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, so biosphere. We're going to talk about Biosphere
49:13
Speaker 1: two in the next episode. But to sort of cut
49:17
Speaker 1: to the chase on that story, they lost a bunch
49:19
Speaker 1: of weight because they couldn't produce enough food in this
49:23
Speaker 1: facility where they were trying to like close every same thing,
49:25
Speaker 1: so the plants would make the oxygen and they would
49:28
Speaker 1: remove the carbon dioxide and that would also be what
49:30
Speaker 1: they ate. And the men lost eighteen percent of their
49:33
Speaker 1: body weight and the women lost ten percent. Oh but
49:36
Speaker 1: even though they were having trouble getting enough calories for
49:38
Speaker 1: dinner and they were like literally like licking their bowls
49:41
Speaker 1: to try to get the last of everything, they took
49:44
Speaker 1: some of their precious bananas to make banana wine, because,
49:48
Speaker 1: like you said, it's not just about eking out in existence. Like,
49:52
Speaker 1: plenty of people have great lives without alcohol, but some
49:56
Speaker 1: of us really like to have a glass of wine
49:59
Speaker 1: at the end of the day or something. And they
50:00
Speaker 1: were willing to give up some of their calories, so
50:02
Speaker 1: that they could make this wine to bring them a
50:04
Speaker 1: little bit of joy at the end of a hard day.
50:06
Speaker 1: I think they were doing like eight to ten hours
50:08
Speaker 1: of labor tending their crops five and a half days
50:11
Speaker 1: a week, so it was like intense. And Andy Weir,
50:14
Speaker 1: so he's the guy who wrote The Martian, and in
50:17
Speaker 1: The Martian his main character Mark Wattney. I think the
50:20
Speaker 1: guy's name is he eats a bunch of potatoes, and
50:23
Speaker 1: those potatoes the fertilizer is like human poo. And people
50:27
Speaker 1: have asked Andy Weir a lot, why didn't he use
50:31
Speaker 1: any of those potatoes to make liquor, And Andy Weer
50:36
Speaker 1: answered that, like, it would have taken so many potatoes
50:39
Speaker 1: to make the liquor that he just he probably would
50:42
Speaker 1: have died, he wouldn't have gotten enough calories. And I
50:44
Speaker 1: think that's a totally reasonable conclusion to come to. But
50:47
Speaker 1: when you actually have humans who are starving, we will
50:51
Speaker 1: make banana wine because we need to be happy too.
50:55
Speaker 1: So yeah, I think the trick for space. Like so,
50:57
Speaker 1: as we mentioned, a lot of these missions are short.
50:59
Speaker 1: They're like weeks, months, maybe a year or something, so
51:02
Speaker 1: you can handle eating food that's not super flavorful. But
51:06
Speaker 1: when we're finally settling somewhere and staying there for years
51:09
Speaker 1: at a time, there's a lot that we need to
51:11
Speaker 1: learn so that we can get better about this kind
51:13
Speaker 1: of stuff, because like rehydrated potatoes are not going to
51:17
Speaker 1: cut it for a lifetime. So in the next episode,
51:21
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about the future of food and space.
51:24
Speaker 2: I mean, even on airplane flights. The first approach, which
51:27
Speaker 2: is just like, get some food up there which is
51:30
Speaker 2: edible and not going to kill people. People are not
51:32
Speaker 2: cool with it, right, And this is why we now
51:34
Speaker 2: have pretty good food on airplanes because companies realize, like
51:38
Speaker 2: humans will always want good food, they will pay a
51:41
Speaker 2: little bit more to have good food. Even if you're
51:43
Speaker 2: just any air for a few hours. It's not okay
51:46
Speaker 2: to just squeeze something into your mouth to survive. It's
51:50
Speaker 2: part of living and it's part of enjoying this extraordinary universe.
51:53
Speaker 1: Humans also want more leg room. Airlines take note, work
51:58
Speaker 1: on that two planes. Even I'm that tall, all.
52:02
Speaker 2: Right, Airplane engineers work on more legroom. In the meantime,
52:05
Speaker 2: stay tuned for our next episode about food in space.
52:15
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