Problem of feeding astronauts in weightlessness and on the anticipated longduration missions of the apollo program. Announcer when john glenn got hungry during his flight, he simply opened the visor on his helmet and popped a pill from into his mouth. This was more than he actually needed for the 4. 5 hours in orbit. The purpose of the meal was to find out whether a man could eat in a weightless condition. Since 1961, food scientists have been hard at work studying and developing space foods and measuring their effect upon man. The problem even for short flights has been a problem. As we continue to launch longer and longer flights into space, new considerations must be dealt with. How space food scientists are doing this is our story today on science reporter. John hello, i am jon fitch, m. I. T. Science reporter. Today we are at the national , aeronautics and Space Administration where they are supporting Considerable Research into the problems of space feeding. It is by no means a simple proposition. Elaborate provisions must be made for situations in which a man can only saline but also function in space. The temperature in the cabin and spacesuit must be kept within critical tolerances. The astronaut must have oxygen to breathe and there must be systems capable of removing toxic gases, carbon monoxide, and other substances. There must be adequate water. The astronaut must have food. This is the most challenging problems since the amount he needs depends upon what he must do. He will have no stove, refrigerator, garbage disposal. Only a limited amount of space to store with food he will require. These problems of space feeding were imagined by jules vern more than a century ago when he wrote a very entertaining story about going to the moon. Maybe because he was man andan and french appreciative of the good life, he did not overlook the necessity of providing his space travelers with a menu. More elaborate than we are able to provide. The breakfast begin with soup. Bowls of excellent two succeeded some beef steaks. It was as if it was compressed by hydraulic rest, tender and succulent steak as if brought straight from the kitchen of an english eating house. Preserved vegetables followed and then cuts of cheese with bread and butter after the american fashion. It was declared excellent due to the infusion of the choices the emperor of russia had given for the benefit of the travelers. Lastly, to crown the repast, a fine bottle of wine which was found by chance in the provision box. These Three Friends drink to the union of the earth and to satellite. Narrator it is doubtful whether unlikely whether our astronauts will ever enjoy a meal like the one jules byrne described, but we talk to a doctor in houston, texas. We have here a variety of types of foods available for the gemini and apollo missions. Here for example are some ables. Ate of shrimp cocktail. Potato soup, which can also be a powdered mixture such as a pudding and a beverage, a grapefruit drink it in this case which could also be cocoa. Just add water and served. Thats right. We have a beef sandwich which can also be a chicken sandwich. Pressed item which could also be a peanut cable or serial cubic and even a fruitcake. Narrator that is a wellbalanced diet. We do put a balanced diet together. However, it is due to empirical knowledge. Or a good share of it is you it. It is based on recommendations for the average american adult male. Announcer this might not be what you actually need in space . The fact is we do not know the requirement for all nutrients here on earth. An example of this is certain vitamins and base minerals. The recommendations are based solely on animal experimentation. There is no human data. Narrator and you need this data, you feel . Yes. When you cannot extract anything from your environment. You either take it with you or you do not have it. So, one must study man and must study these nutrient requirements. Under resting or as we call it, fatal conditions. Host just what you need to stay alive . Exactly. This will vary from individual to individual. This is before you can introduce the elements of the environment youre going to deal with. For example, the stresses you will have to deal with. Host what kind of stresses . Let me show you. Here we see a series of stressors. First, the affective geforce you would get on lived or reentry. Host the acceleration and the deceleration during a flight. Exactly. Here is in impact test. As you would get on a hard landing, for instance. Here we see vibration. This occurs especially on liftoff in combination with the acceleration and may very considerably with a type of booster. Here at this level we are seeing the establishment of tolerance limits. Here we see a the effect of noise combined with a disorientation. Host noise of the rocket motor . Yes, and the noise of the friction. For instance, escaped our function. Here is a study of atmosphere. This is longterm. This will always be present. 100 oxygen at five psi for example. Or a mixture of gases we are now studying. This is an example of disorientation as one gets with tumbling. As you might well remember on jp five, especially when the power the spacecraft is likely to tumble. Host you are likely to get dizzy, i suppose. You probably do not notice dizziness but you may be altering the apparatus when you combine it with weightlessness. This is the most critical and the least known factor of the space flight stressors. Certainly the one of continued duration. Host i could see how some of those might make you lose your appetite for a few hours, but do they really affect your need for food . At short duration, stressors probably affect your appetite momentarily, but i do not think it would affect your total nutrient requirement for any extended period of time. However, the altered atmosphere, weightlessness, and the radiation and continued exposure might singularly or in combination altar nutrient requirements. Therefore, what must study what therefore, one must study what nutrient requirements are on the basal condition and then what they are with the stress ors either individually or in combination and then redo the whole thing in the actual environment of space. And then with that knowledge we can truly say we have established realistic nutrition criteria for the development of food systems. Host to learn about nutrition, research and nutritional requirements and how they are flight, by space we talked next to a professor of nutrition at the university of california at her clay. We really do know something about nutrients and nutrient requirements. There are some gaps in our knowledge. Qualitative things. What things are essential and what things are not. Others. Greater gaps on we have some knowledge. We get along with a limited amount of knowledge right here because we eat to a wide variety of things. Some things today, tomorrow, a mixture of things is a meal. In the astronaut population, we do not have this flexibility opens us. Open to us. It is less than precise knowledge because we can only send a limited array of things with the men and if we have forgotten anything we do not have a chance to go back and add it or for them to get out somewhere and routes and added pick it up on their own. Host what are these essential nutrients . The same thing for selling in stores. Vitamins for metabolic processes, nutrients. Minerals for your skeleton. The regulators. Host if you dont have these you will be in trouble he , eventually . Serious trouble. Host so how do you find out what a human being actually needs . The very best way is to go into a laboratory and find out what a Representative Group of people need. In our case, we actually work with students. You want to see how we go about this . Host yes. These are test subjects, mainly students, in our penthouse laboratory. They are sitting at the dining table. Here a man doing treadmill work, which is standard every day for subjects so we can keep everything as constant as possible. He is running his german as he plows up to three miles an hour on the treadmill. This is bicycle work. In this case we are measuring , the Energy Expenditure of the subject doing a known amount of work on the bicycle by measuring how much oxygen he is using and how much Carbon Dioxide he puts out, we know how much energy he expenses. Host so you can relate all of this duty food . That is right. And we analyze all of it metabolically. We analyze things that people also expand, like bath whiskers and water. Basicwhen you know these essential requirements, is that all you to send along . No, the weight of these essential nutrients is essentially only a very small part of the total weight of food we have to send. The protean, vitamins, and minerals, would not weigh more than three ounces he even if we ounces even if we were liberal about it. Two ounces to get down to it. We use calories for energy. Everything alive. Host what do you use that for . Everything. Staying alive. The basal right is what you use for mental activity, heartbeat, reading, necessary body functions. Which you can determine very easily, the basal metabolism. Host how many calories would that come to . It depends on your age, size, sex. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 16001800 a day. In addition to that, whatever activities you carry out demands more energy. In the case of the astronauts, probably a rather sedentary life being an astronaut about 2500 calories a day. A little less than this even. Host with 2500 calories, can a you put it into a pill . You could, but you could not swallow the pill. The most energetic pill we could send would be pure fat. It would have nine calories and one gram but we would need something over half of town to pound to provide the Energy Required to and that would be the size of a hockey puck. Host if this food is fat, could you make the whole diet out a of fat . You could not for other reasons. We need protein, minerals, vitamins. You cannot just utilize fat by itself, you have to have another nutrient burning along with it , otherwise you get to feeling headachy and nauseous. So we must send carbohydrates as well. We have about two or three ounces of essential nutrients, two or three ounces of essential carbohydrates, so were up to eight ounces. Chances are we would not send that much fat along because it is not palatable. If we sent anything like you would normally prefer as a composition, it would be something more then a pound of weight of dry food plus all of the water and oxygen and all the other critical nutrients you need. Host before spaceflight menus can be prepared, other considerations must be met. In order to find out about the food of space, we talked to dr. Donald, the chief of the general product section. The u. S. Army Food Division has been working for a number of years on the development of Food Products for military rations. Many of the problems encountered in the developments are applicable to the problems in space feeding. Host are there special problems in space . There are a great many new problems we have had to overcome. To illustrate these, we are severely limited in the amount of weight and volume we can tolerate. Also, there are severe environmental stresses such as acceleration, deceleration, high temperature, compression , and things like that. To overcome some of the severe environmental problems, we have developed a series of nearly 50 different food items which can be used for space feeding. These can be divided into two major categories. A system of rehydratable foods. Dehydrated by various means typical of which is freezedried food, like these. Host you can get some of these on the market now, can you . Yes. Some of them are available commercially. Host what are these . Peaches . Yes. And here are peas and corn. These are samples of the type of the items that are being used is as freezedried items to be rehydrated. In addition, we have a great many bytesized foods. They are high calorie source of food. Typically, fruitcake. Sandwiches. Items like toast. Host how can you eat items like toast in a space environment spacecraft without getting crumbs all over it . You have to coat it with a highmelting point fat. To overcome crumbs and disintegration. We are working on a covering. Host what do you do about the se rehydratable items . You can eat them off a plate with a knife and fork. They all come packaged with this. One meal for an astronaut. Inside, we have a series of packages. This is an example of a rehydratable package. The astronaut cuts the end of the package off and then inserts the water gun, putting in the required amount of water to rehydrate the product. Host i dont see how you are saving weight if you have to add the water back in. That is correct. At present, we have to carry sufficient water for drinking and rehydration, but we are working on systems such as using the water from fuelcell byproducts for rehydration drinking and systems for recycling water. Host this is a grapefruit drink. Yes. Host five ounces of water, 25 minutes. It requires a certain amount of time to make sure the beverage is dissolved in the water. The package is needed to aid rehydration and the oneway valve prevents the water from flying around the caps off. The capsule. After it is rehydrated, the other end is cut and the feeding tube is removed from the package where the astronaut inserts this directly in his mouth. Host and squeeze it like toothpaste . Correct. And drinks the product. Actually, quite delicious. Inside the package is a tablet german side pill germicide pill inserted to prevent residual formations. Then the package is wrapped up and put into a disposable container. Host knowing the kind of food which can be prepared, stored, and used in a spacecraft, and the nutritional requirements of the astronauts, dietitians can begin to prepare menus. To learn more about testing, we talked to a nutritionist. Dr. Calloway has told us about these essential nutrients we and the calories we need for energy and we have heard about what i assume were about 50 different nutritious items. How do you put this into a menu . Nasa gives us the requirements for the menu. The length of the mission is quite important to us and more or less determines what variety is on a menu. The longer the mission, the more variety you need for consumption throughout the flight. Host you would not want to use the same menu every day. Even if it were nutritious, they might get bored. Correct. The volume of the food is important also. This is related to the length of the mission. The longer the mission, the more concerned you are with the amount of space the food takes. In the rehydratable foods, they require much more room than the bitesized items. Host when you say acceptable, and you know what the astronauts like in the way of food . We get their preferences before flight. We check the menu with them to be sure that they will eat and like everything on the menu. Host what are the factors you have to take into consideration . Texture of the food good menu , combinations. We are as concerned as feeding the astronauts goodsounding combinations of food as the housewife is in feeding her family. Host you would not want to serve peas and chocolate sauce no matter how nutritious they were. Does not sound good. We are also concerned with low gas production. Things that do not cause distress. We are concerned with color of food. We are concerned with the acceptability of the food. Host how do you find out other than actually trying food . Acceptability. We test each item separately. In fact, these are the rooms behind this wall where the testing is done. The tester is given a sample and then he tastes the food and rates it on a card telling just exactly how he likes or does not like the particular food. Then we average the values and find out how the average consumer would like this particular type of food. Would you like to taste it . A peanut cube. The astronauts like those. Host very good. Thank you very much. This is the light systems in life systems evaluator in ohio. It was designed to determine precise nutritional requirements to evaluate food for longterm spaceflight and to investigate personal hygiene procedures. It is manned by four subjects, two of whom wear a pressurized spacesuit constantly for 16 days. Their activities were under constant surveillance 24 hours daily. Temperature, humidity, and other environmental variables were checked periodically by the chamber operators. All diets were scientifically formulated and each portion was weighed to the nearest 1 10 of a gram to determine the balance between intake and weight. Once daily, food was passed into the evaluator. Waste matter was disposed of in the same way. A threeday diet cycle of precooked, dehydrated food with bitesized compressed items and a matching, rationally compare d diet were compared for public acceptance. They were packaged in metal foil envelopes to retain flavor and freshness. The results showed that dehydrated and bitesized foods were very acceptable for intentional use in aerospace systems. In addition to testing the food, the packaging, storing, preparation, and disposal are also tested to determine how well they will work in the spacecraft. As we have seen, food for spaceflight may be bitesized, rehydrated, or dehydrated. Each one is tested in a simulator before it is approved for use. Dehydrated foods must be reconstituted with water before consumption. The supply of water comes from a fuel cell of which water is a byproduct. A hose is located between the astronaut in this gemini capsule mockup. As soon as the astronaut has finished his meal, he has a pill hegermicide inserts into the bag and mixes with the remaining food to retard spoiling. Then it is stored for the balance of the trip. Here the astronaut is opening a packet of bite sized items. These may either be freezedried or compressed. Each item is thoroughly ground tested in the Mission Simulators before being allowed to go on an actual mission. Under these situations, technicians can determine packaging faults, convenience and handling storage problems, compatibility with other systems, and general reliability before the item is sent into space. Present technology of space feeding is well enough developed for missions of even one month duration, but new problems begin to arise with extended missions to perhaps another planet. To find out about research in this area, we talked to a doctor. For extended missions, the critical factors are weight, and and power. This being the case, the concept of reusing what you have in the spacecraft becomes the optimal approach. First, you would try to recycle the water. Then, probably the oxygen. By recovering the co2 and extracting the oxygen it. The regeneration of food becomes important. The first approach would be to compress food, which we are now doing. Therefore, reduce the volume for storage. Then, we would try to introduce items such as these prototype foods here. The nutrientdefined product. It would be essential ingredients. Host leaving out the fibers into other things you cannot adjust anyway . Correct. We would make it available reconstituted and made into a liquid to drink or the identical ingredient in the form of a candy or even a cookie. From tha