WORLD'S FIRST ASTRONAUT FOOD
THE LONGEST LIST OF THE LONGEST
STUFF AT THE LONGEST DOMAIN NAME AT LONG LAST
What was the world's first astronaut food?
When the NASA Space Program
began its investigation into getting man into space, they were faced with many
challenges that man would meet while up there. They needed to take into
consideration not only if the space shuttles were fit to go but also if the
pilots and commanders were and how they would handle life while onboard the
spacecraft and they had to anticipate the astronaut’s every need. One of these
needs of course, was food for the astronauts while in flight as NASA had plans
of missions that would last days, weeks, months, and perhaps even years.
Appropriate food for astronauts needed to be invented and someone had to be the
first astronaut to experiment with it.
John Glenn was the astronaut chosen to eat the first astronaut food and he did
so, on his mission with the Mercury, where he orbited Earth three times before
returning home. His mission was only about five hours long and didn’t
necessarily require that he eat but because the research and development team
can’t think of every possible situation, needed an astronaut to test it. The
food that John Glenn ate was the food that one typically imagines when thinking
of astronaut food. It was freeze-dried items such as turkey, cheese, bread, and
other items that were placed into plastic tubes and then squeezed out. There
were a few problems with the food, such as crumbs that would threaten to enter
crevices of equipment and interfere with the operation and so, adjustments and
advancements needed to be made. However, there were none of the major problems
that were feared, such as the astronaut not being able to swallow due to the
lack of gravity in space.
Today astronaut food has been significantly revamped into cubes that are made
from food and then mixed with gelatin. The food is also now placed in metal
tubes and the food can be shaken out. This eliminates problems such as crumbling
and is only one of the advancements that has been made to this special type of
food!
Astronaut Food
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