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Welcome to Space to Ground. I'm Shaneequa Vereen.

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Today we're inside the Johnson Space\h
Center Space Food Systems Laboratory.\h\h

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Food!  It's a part of our everyday lives and it\h
plays an important role in the holiday season.\h\h

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Here in the United States we're celebrating the\h
Thanksgiving holiday, which is a time for friends\h\h

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and family to gather around the dinner table\h
and share a feast. But how do you pull off such\h\h

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a Thanksgiving meal, or any meal for that matter\h
in space? To guide us through the makings of a\h\h

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meal on the International Space Station we're\h
joined by Xulei Wu, the Food Systems Manager\h\h

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for the International Space Station. Thank you so\h
much for joining us today Xulei. We do have the\h\h

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Thanksgiving holiday coming up and I know you guys\h
have to prepare a little advance and there's no\h\h

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grocery store in space, so can you tell me a little\h
bit about the menu and how it gets there to the\h\h

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International Space Station? Yeah, exactly as you\h
mentioned there's no grocery store in space and\h\h

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there is no kitchen appliances for crew member\h
to cook up a meal from scratch in microgravity,\h\h

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therefore here in Food Lab we have to procure,\h
process, and package all the food in advance to\h\h

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send to our crew members. Here with me I have a few\h
selection of food packages like this one. This one\h\h

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is a Smoked Turkey. This is the irradiated product\h
that is a technology utilizing the gamma radiation\h\h

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to make the food shelf stable. The red dot here indicating it received a sufficient amount of

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dosage to make the product safe to eat. Another\h
example here this one is Candied Yam. This product\h\h

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you can see it's made in 2021 and would definitely\h
still be good as well. This is thermal stabilized\h\h

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package. It's basically just like the canned\h
foods you can find in grocery store, Canned Tuna,\h

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etc., but we pack them in those flexible pouch so\h
that they're lighter in weight and also when crew\h\h

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member finish eating they can compact the trash\h
very easily. And another one here this one is\h\h

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Spicy Green Beans. They're in those white package\h
so those products are freeze-dried literally here.\h\h

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So as you can see spicy green beans dry like a\h
mummy. Freeze-drying the process to remove all the\h\h

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water out. You may be surprised all the food we\h
eat on daily basis most of them are between 80\h\h

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to 90 percent of water. That's what makes them\h
spoil so quick. If we take all the water out\h\h

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then they become very shelf stable. And do you\h
guys take any special requests for these holiday\h\h

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meals? Yeah that's actually very important because\h
whatever food we send up we want to making sure\h\h

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crew member will be liking the food. If they don't\h
like the food then we just waste up the payload\h\h

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going up. So I will reach out to crew member to\h
see what they would like to have like this year\h\h

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specifically crew member would like to have a\h
Charcuterie Board. Ah! Therefore we work with a cargo\h\h

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integration team, managed to stir up some cheese,\h
real cheese with refrigeration and some dried\h\h

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meats that passed micro testing, and some fruits\h
and dried nuts so those gonna be up there for\h\h

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this holiday. So how much food does an astronaut\h
need to eat while on station trying to maintain\h\h

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muscle mass and bone density and nutritional\h
values to help keep them there? Yeah, so for the\h\h

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crew member to maintain a healthy weight they do\h
lots of exercise. More exercise means more calorie\h\h

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therefore their calorie requirement is higher\h
than the requirement on ground. So normally on\h\h

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average, for a female astronauts probably about\h
2700 calories per day. For male, somewhere about\h\h

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3 300 calories per day. Of course that depends\h
on the gender their height and their weight.\h\h

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And it's it's specific or you know tailored per\h
astronaut correct?  That's correct. Yeah but most of them normally\h\h

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structure their male into breakfast, lunch, dinner,\h
with a snack in between. How about cravings? Are\h\h

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are there a wide enough variety in menu options\h
for astronauts if they do have cravings while up\h\h

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there for however long duration? Yeah,  variety is\h
a buzzword. Variety is a key, because even if you\h\h

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like smoked turkey, you love smoked turkey but eat\h
this every day for one week you're gonna hate it\h\h

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next week. So we try to supply a big variety as big\h
as possible we, on the standard menu we supply 200\h\h

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different food and beverage items for crew member\h
to pick and choose. But 200 may sound a lot to you\h\h

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but imagine this, our target consumer astronauts\h
they all have different backgrounds and they're\h\h

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very diverse in terms of personal preference, so\h
after you take out things they don't like for\h\h

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each crew member that shrink significantly, so\h
with supplement with crew preference containers.\h\h

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Each crew member for six months stay up there\h
they get nine containers of those preference food\h\h

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so those can be food either from our standard menu\h
because if you really like smoke turkey and your\h\h

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crewmates also love smoked turkey you better pack\h
some your own. Because on the standard menu first\h\h

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come first serve. And they can also request lots\h
of the commercial off the shelf items as long as\h\h

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we evaluate and consider their safe for flight, we\h
will pack those for crew member to add a variety\h\h

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as well. Also and the third key thing is exchange\h
remember they do share food ISS with like the\h\h

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Russian crew members and when you're sharing\h
you add more variety.  The aroma of food. How does\h\h

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that work in space? Yeah, so there are several\h
foods to that first of all if you really like\h\h

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coffee... I love the coffee smell, but this is going\h
to be the coffee package crew member gonna get and\h\h

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once they add water back they use this straw to\h
drink the coffee so they're not going to be able\h\h

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to smell their coffee. Okay, now what about\h
these?  Yeah for food it says aroma molecules on\h\h

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Earth normally they're lighter than air that's why\h
they go up go straight to your nasal pathway. For\h\h

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crew member one thing they don't smell very well,\h
and also the second thing the aroma molecule in\h\h

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the microgravity they go everywhere. So I know\h
on station,  condiments are a thing and crew\h\h

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members tend to like the the spicier condiments is\h
that is that true is that right? That tend to be\h\h

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true for many crew members um because when you're\h
in microgravity environment your body fluids shift\h\h

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make you don't you have kind of stuffy nose you\h
don't smell things very well, so crew members tend\h\h

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to like the spicy kick in the food that help\h
them open up the nasal pathway and also help\h\h

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them taste the food better.   That makes sense. Part\h
of tasting is smell. Now, what's in the future for\h\h

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the space food system? What are we looking forward\h
to for Moon to Mars missions, for Artemis missions\h\h

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going forward.  Yeah that's a good question. For the\h
future we do envision the space food system gonna\h\h

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be a combination of several technologies. The\h
first one those we consider as a pre-packaged\h\h

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food system because crew member all they need to\h
do is just add water or just heat up and open to\h\h

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eat those are ready to eat food. We still consider\h
this as part of the future space food system\h\h

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because those doesn't require much time from crew\h
members and also if there are any issues to other\h\h

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systems they will have this one to lay back on,\h
to fall back on. The second portion we're thinking\h\h

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about is like the crop, for crew member to plant\h
crops veggies in space. And there have been some\h\h

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testing going on that I remember harvest chili in\h
space and make a chili taco. I do recall that and\h\h

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I do recall them eating and testing out the the\h
food that they were growing. I know so far they've\h\h

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looked at some leafy greens, some radishes, and like\h
you said the the chilies were very big on station.\h\h

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So, can you tell us any new items that you guys\h
are looking into or of recent years are there any\h\h

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crew favorites that have recently flown to\h
the International Space Station. Yeah I think\h\h

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one great example for that is a Mango Salad.\h
That's a product developed by our Advanced\h\h

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Food Technology scientists. They developed this\h
product, they do the shelf life evaluation like\h\h

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three years making sure the food is all good,\h
then we added it to the standard menu. And since\h\h

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then we have heard just positive, very positive\h
comments from crew members. That's different.\h

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Mango Salad. Yes, it's actually pretty good\h
it's a free dry product, but yeah, very fresh.\h\h

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Xulei Wu, from the International Space Station Food\h
Laboratory.  Thank you so much! You're very welcome\h\h