Very carefully is probably the quick answer but clearly there is more to it than that. A little research can come up with some interesting facts and figures about just how much technology is involved in feeding an astronaut.
John Glenn, in 1962, was charged with the task of finding out if it was possible to eat in microgravity. Scientists had feared that conditions would make it impossible for an astronaut to swallow. The case proved to be that swallowing wasn’t a problem but enjoying the food was a whole different matter. Apparently sucking pureed apple sauce through a straw out of a tube wasn’t the optimum menu choice.
Those first attempts at ‘space foods’ were unappetizing to say the least, packaged in tubes (that proved a challenge to squeeze in themselves), cubes coated in gelatin and freeze-dried. Rehydrating the freeze-dried food proved difficult and the cubes carried the danger of crumbs getting into the delicate machinery and causing a major malfunction.
However, by the time of the Gemini missions, the packaging had improved greatly and with it, the menu. Now it was possible to have such delicacies as chicken and vegetables and butterscotch pudding.
The arrival of hot water with the Apollo missions greatly improved eating in space as it made rehydrating foods much easier. An interesting fact is that the appetite of astronauts is suppressed in space for a couple of reasons.
One is that the smell of food tends to dissipate before it gets to their noses. When you can’t smell food it’s difficult to really taste it too.
Also, liquid in the body tends to rise to the upper half in space and gives astronauts blocked noses adding to the no sense of smell problem. Spices and condiments can be added to food but it really makes little difference.
The Apollo astronauts were also the first to have the ‘spoon bowl’. A little like Tupperware, this was a lidded bowl that could be opened to allow the astronaut to eat with a spoon. A long way from that nasty paste in a tube.
It is perhaps a lesser known fact that Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong enjoyed foil-packed roast turkey with all the trimmings as their first meal on the moon. Also Tang (a powdered orange drink) was adopted by NASA and available for the Gemini astronauts. It also travelled to the moon in 1969.
Skylab provided the next big leap forward in space dining. It allowed astronauts to use footholds to hook themselves into a sitting position at a table. Small improvements like magnetized trays to anchor metallic eating implements and trays that warmed the food also made the eating experience more ‘normal’. Trays also have fabric straps to hold them in place.
Part of the problem with food in space is it’s tendency to simply float away. Watching your apple juice get into the works of a million dollar piece of machinery is not something any astronaut wants to contemplate. Hence the need to develop ‘space safe’ packaging and to use dehydrated drinks which the astronauts can rehydrate through a special tube.
Even cleaning up after a meal is a little different. The trays and cutlery, once the packages have been emptied into the trash compartment, are taken to the hygiene station and cleaned with moist towelettes. No washing up for these guys.
Beef jerky has become a regular on space flights. It is light, has plenty of nutritional value and also requires no special packaging or preparation making it an extremely suitable space food.
Today, with the introduction of fresh fruit and vegetables, even pasta the eating experience of an astronaut has come a long way since the sixties, to the point where it is almost the same as eating back home. A far cry from those tubes and straws. There have been vegetarian astronauts whose needs were readily catered for such as Timothy J Creamer. Even Canadian salmon and Italian Parmesan have made it into space so perhaps the skies, or the stars, are the limit when it comes to dining in space.
Sources
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/postsecondary/features/F_Food_for_Space_Flight.html
http://science.howstuffworks.com/astronauts-eat-in-space.htm
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfrdrfood1.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_food
http://www.foodreference.com/html/fastronaut.html
And finally, should you feel the urge to try it yourself. the following is a link to buying some ‘space food’.
http://www.iwantoneofthose.com/astronaut-food/index.html
