>> Hi now we're back here inside the Space Food Laboratory here
at the NASA Johnson Space Center
and again earlier we've been talking about some
of the preparation and talking about food and some
of the menu items that crew aboard the International Space
Station will be having this Thanksgiving
and again we are here with Vickie Kloeris,
our NASA space scientist, tell me this is just another area
of that food lab so tell me exactly what area are we
in right now.
Okay what you see behind you is our packaging room
and so it's really a portable, commercial portable clean room
that we've converted into a packaging area
so all our packaging equipment is inside.
It has Hepa filters that filter the air
to help keep the contamination possibilities
down when we're packaging food.
So the type of food that you would...we do all our beverages
would be packaged here like we have in this package
and all our freeze dried items as well
as our bite sized products like M and M's, cookies, crackers,
candies all of those items would be packaged in the equipment
that you see here in this facility.
>> Okay great so tell me a little about the packaging,
what do we have, what kind of packaging is this?
>> The beverage package, all of our beverages are
in powdered form and so this is a foil laminate pouch
that we buy from a commercial manufacturer, we buy it,
it's sealed on three sides, it's open on this end.
We weigh in the appropriate amount of powder
for a single serving and then the packaging equipment
that you see here is designed to seal the beverage adapter
or the septum adapter assembly into the end of the package
and so this is what allows the water to be injected
on orbit using the rehydration station.
Inside this is a septum and the septum is a little plastic valve
so the needle inserts and the water is injected and then
when the needle is withdrawn the septum closes off
to prevent the fluid from flowing out of the package.
>> Okay, great and then they just take this and shake it up
and then insert a straw...
>> Yeah into the package and drink through the straw.
>> Okay.
>> And the straw has a clamp on it so that
in between sips they can clamp it closed
to prevent the fluid from flowing out.
>> The re-hydratable products all require the addition
of some amount of water prior to consumption,
has the same septum adaptor assembly,
in this case they inject the water, they wait for the product
to absorb the water then they're able to cut the package open
with scissors and eat out of the package with a fork or a spoon.
Typically what they'll do is cut an X across the top,
they'll eat out of the center of the X and the flaps
from the remaining material will help hold the rest
of the product inside the package while they extract the
bite that they're going to eat.
>> Okay.
>> You're depending on the surface tension
of the wet product to cause it to stick to the package
or stick to your utensil.
>> So there's no turkey carving up there, it's just the scissors
and they cut it open and eat that just as that is.
So talk to me a little bit about...so this is what he is
doing actually right behind us, there's some packaging now,
can you tell me about how long in advance do we typically start
to prepare food that is going to flown into space?
>> Well, we have to maintain an inventory of our products
at all times and so typically we'll be producing...we produce
like our thermo stabilized products we'll produce those
year round.
>> Okay.
>> Because it will take us an entire year
to produce all the different kinds
of thermo stabilized products that we have.
Beverages we're going to package those usually as needed
and so typically for a ship set
for beverages we'll start packaging those about four
of five months in advance of the time
that shipment is actually going to go out the door.
>> Okay.
>> And re-hydratables usually we try to package those
in about...within about a six or eight month period prior
to the shipment going out the door.
>> Okay, great.
So this is the packaging but talk to me a little bit
about the packing, how is this food packed to go
up into the International Space Station.
>> Okay well we have a couple of different options
for actually the containers that we use to send the food
to orbit, one is a collapsible metal food container,
typically we use that when we're sending food on the Progress
because the Progress has slots built into it
that hold those containers.
Another option that we often use is what we call our bulk
overwrap bag, it's really just a large plastic bag
that we overwrap the contents of one
of those metal containers in.
And we're typically using
that when we're sending food on the ATV or HTV.
>> Okay and these are cargo ships of the different agencies
that we have [inaudible].
>> Unmanned cargo vehicles.
>> Right, Okay.
>> Okay and now with Space X the new commercial cargo [inaudible]
we're also using the bulk overwrap bags,
the plastic overwrap bags which I can show you later.
>> Sure.
>> And they take those and actually put them inside
of the crew transfer bag, or the MO2 bags,
the different...we have an example of one
in there in the lab as well.
>> Okay.
>> But they typically take those bulk overwrap bags
and stow them inside another container to get them to orbit.
>> Great, okay now as you know we've been answering some
questions from people that we've polled and thanks
to our total followers just sending these questions.
Now one of the questions and this kind of talks
about the future space feed system and so I'd like you
to kind of go on and talk to me a little
about what technologies we're exploring for space feed system
because obviously International Space Station is one place
and then there are further destinations that's we'd
like to go.
>> Right.
>> And we need food to sustain us for longer periods of time.
One of these questions are given a true space galley,
this comes from Todd Templeman,
what's the most useful edible we could grow
in an attached green house, thanks.
>> Okay so there's two ways to look at that question,
in transit if you were say on your way to Mars
on a six month mission, which now we know it will take
with current propulsion it will take about six months
to get there you could grow some crops during the transit
but typically those would have
to be what we call pick and eat crops.
Meaning something like a cherry tomato that you could grow,
you could harvest and basically all you'd have
to do is clean it and eat it.
Because in micro gravity you're not really going to be able
to do a lot of the elaborate processing of crops
or elaborate cooking because without gravity that gets very,
very difficult so it's not really practical to think
about growing wheat in micro gravity and then having
to mill it into flour, that's not going
to work in micro gravity.
But when you get to the surface of the moon or Mars and you have
and you're on the surface where you have
at least partial gravity you can certainly then begin to think
about the possibility of either growing crops
to help you recycle your air and water and then also using them
as part of your food system or also the possibility of taking
like bulk ingredients with you say like flour
and then doing more elaborate cooking...
>> So not having our food already prepared
but actually kind of putting ingredients together
to prepare a dish.
>> Actually doing real cooking, probably you're not going to do
that 100 percent because it does take a lot more free time and so
in that situation it's probably going to end up being a mix
of prepackaged foods and perhaps stuff that you prepare.
>> Kind of like the cooking I do at home.
>> Right, exactly.
>> All right...well thank you that's a wrap
on the food wrap here and how it's wrapped here at NASA,
the NASA Space Food Lab, again with Vickie Kloeris,
from our kitchen to yours, happy Thanksgiving.
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