News > Rachael Ray Upgrades Astronaut Food
December 1, 2006
Via AOL:
(Dec. 1) -- No more goop-in-a-tube for America's hungry astronauts.
Space shuttle Discovery, slated to launch Dec. 7, will carry Thai chicken and two other dishes devised by Food Network star and TV talk show host Rachael Ray. They're the first meals from a food celebrity to fly on the shuttle.
The meals will make "a nice … psychological twist for our crewmembers," says NASA food systems manager Vickie Kloeris.
The seven Discovery astronauts will help expand and rewire the International Space Station.
Space station astronauts have already sampled celebrity food. Emeril Lagasse's jambalaya and mashed potatoes with bacon were devoured on the station in August. German station resident Thomas Reiter told Lagasse, famous for his New Orleans-style fare, that it was "perfect" for satisfying the crew's "longing … for spicy food."
Food is key to the happiness of station crews, who spend half a year in orbit. It's small potatoes for most shuttle astronauts, who live in space two weeks and are often too busy to eat. Thirty percent of the food packed on the shuttle returns to Earth uneaten though still edible, Kloeris says, and many astronauts lose weight in orbit.
That's not because the food is bad. Astronauts say today's space chow is tasty — a far cry from the applesauce in a squeeze tube consumed by John Glenn, the first American to eat in space.
Most of the shuttle food is freeze-dried or heat-treated and can last for months. The fare includes delicacies such as freeze-dried shrimp cocktail and irradiated steak. Astronauts are assigned menus based on dietary needs and food preferences.
Kloeris predicts Ray's dishes, which were cooked at NASA's kitchens, will get eaten despite the astronauts' tendency to skip meals. That's because they'll go in the fresh-food tray, which holds perishables such as fruit and favorite snacks of the crew's choice.
The tray "is their special stash," Kloeris says. "They usually focus on that pretty thoroughly."
Appearing on Ray's talk show in October, Discovery commander Mark Polansky, an avid cook, pronounced Ray's chicken "great."
The crew can also dig into treats from crewmate Christer Fugelsang, the first Swede to fly in space: ginger cookies and moose pâté.
