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>> What we eat in space is very similar to what we have
down here on earth; in fact, we have a nutrition lab
that does a great job of putting together a very healthy,
nutritious menu for us with a lot of variety
and so sometimes I think I may actually eat better while I'm
up on space than when I'm down here on earth.
>> My name is Monica Leong; I'm a research scientist here
at NASA Space Food Systems Laboratory.
I conduct research and development projects
on future food systems for long duration missions
and I also support the Aero National Space Station
food provisioning.
The American Food System has
about 203 food items on the menu.
We try to give them foods that are familiar
to what they have here on earth so we make them mac and cheese,
we make them beef brisket.
They get all sorts of stuff to make them comfortable
because when you're in space and you're in a confined area
with only five other people, you might miss home a little bit
so we try to make it as comfortable
as possible with food.
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>> So how much water do I drink in space?
Well, I don't know yet.
I do know that down here on earth, I drink a lot of water.
In fact, I always have my water bottle with me
and so I'm constantly drinking water and I'm anticipating
that that will be the same up on orbit
but obviously it can be a little bit different
and I won't have my water bottle,
I'll have my little water bag with me when I'm floating around
but I do anticipate drinking lots
of water while I'm on orbit as well.
>> They're allowed about 2 liters
of water a day for drinking.
They are also allowed about 500 milliliters of water
for rehydration of their freeze dried food products.
We also expect that they get some water
from the thermo stabilize products just
to make sure they have good healthy nutrition up there.
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>> So our diet while we're up in space is actually managed
by the nutrition lab and there are actually experts
in that field that monitor everything that we eat
that understand all of the nutrition that goes
into every meal that we have and so without them,
our diet wouldn't be as good as it is and wouldn't be
as nutritious as it is.
>> So when we're designing the menus for the astronauts
in space, we have a dietician on staff who makes sure
that it's well balanced with all the vitamins
and nutrients that they need.
They also eat about 3,000 calories a day more or less,
it depends on each astronaut but they're given a menu,
a standard menu to guide them.
They don't have to stick with it
but we [inaudible] food pantry style so they go in
and just take what they want for the day.
Here's some examples of the food, so we have beverages here.
This is a mango peach smoothie.
This is a cinnamon scone.
Here are some black beans in a thermo stabilized pouch.
They also get tortillas which is actually a very hot commodity
up there.
Granola bars, cream of spinach
for example, [inaudible] crackers.
We also have condiment packages for them so we send them
up things like ketchup, mayo, Tobasco, mustard.
They just -- they often come back to us and said
that the food doesn't taste the same
in space as it does on earth.
They also can't have regular salt
so we give them salt in a bottle.
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Some of the research that I do here at NASA is
for the advanced food technology portfolio.
I'm doing research to characterize food systems
for long duration missions,
including the ones going to Mars.
One of the problems that we have is
that the food can be really heavy and they also can take
up a lot of space so one of the countermeasures to that is
to develop a nutrition bar that can encompass all
of the nutrients from a breakfast and lunch meal --
or lunch meal and put them into a food bar.
There's nothing like that in the market right now
but we developed 700 calorie food bars
that can just be packaged into one pouch
so it will minimize waste and it will be lightweight
and it will be easy to eat and it takes no time to prepare.
We're looking at other technologies
such as instant beverages to encompass all
of the nutrients as well.
There are a lot of applications for this in the real world;
for instance, it could help with disaster relief,
some temporary hunger relief,
as well as for camping and survival foods.
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So this is an example of what a Thanksgiving dinner might look
like on the International Space Station
so here we have smoked turkey and it's actually
in a radiated product that is produced for us by the military.
We have cornbread dressing which is a freeze dried item
and it looks like this at first but once it's rehydrated,
it looks just like normal cornbread dressing.
Likewise, we have the green beans with mushrooms which looks
like this in its pouch and then when you add water to it,
it looks a lot like that.
Here we have candied yams, which is a thermal stabilized product
so it comes in a pouch like this and they just heat it up
and put it right on the plate.
Here we have mashed potatoes, which is very similar
to the green beans and cornbread dressing,
where it's freeze dried and you just add water,
head it up and it's ready.
We also have apple cider here,
so this is what their beverages look like in space.
For dessert, we have apples with spice,
also a thermal stabilized product, comes in a pouch,
just heat it up and serve.
Another option for dessert would be the cranapple
dessert product.
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NASA wishes you a happy Thanksgiving.