To give astronauts better food, engineers test a fridge prototype in microgravity Note to journalists: A video of the researchers testing their fridge design in microgravity is available on YouTube. Additional footage and photos of the experiments aboard the ZERO-G flights are available via Google Drive. Journalists visiting campus should follow visitor health guidelines. WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Astronauts have been going to space since 1961, but they still don’t have a refrigerator to use for keeping food cold on long missions to the moon or Mars. Through experiments conducted in microgravity, a team of engineers from Purdue University, Air Squared Inc., and Whirlpool Corporation has shown that a prototype they developed could potentially overcome the challenges of getting a traditional fridge to work in space just as well as it does on Earth.