[at-l] Space Food Being Sold on Internet

[Snodrog5@aol.com (Snodrog5@aol.com)]

Space Food Being Sold on Internet  

By KRISTEN HAYS
.c The Associated Press

HOUSTON (Oct. 28) - Space food has come a long way from the bland applesauce 
that pioneering astronaut John Glenn squeezed from a tube while in orbit 39 
years ago.

These days astronauts aboard the International Space Station for months at a 
stretch nosh on such comfort foods as meatloaf, beef stew and bread pudding. 
The fare may not look pretty, but it is the real thing.

''It's not like chicken - it is chicken,'' Internet entrepreneur Dayna Steele 
Justiz of Houston said of NASA's culinary concoctions she sells to the 
earthbound at thespacestore.com.

Justiz, whose husband, Charlie, is a test pilot for NASA, sells overruns of 
actual ready-to-eat fare the space agency's food contractor prepares for 
astronauts on space shuttles and aboard space station Alpha.

A great deal of the chow consumed by shuttle crews is dehydrated and needs 
water, unless astronauts prefer it dry. But food contractor Johnson 
Engineering is continually adding more fully cooked, ready-to-eat entrees, 
desserts and side dishes so astronauts facing long stints in orbit can get 
more of a taste of home.

''It's pretty darn good, actually,'' said astronaut Susan Helms, who arrived 
home in August after more than five months aboard the station with astronaut 
Jim Voss and Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev. ''All three of us on the flight 
ended up eating quite a bit of it.''

Station astronauts consume a 50/50 mixture of American- and Russian-made 
food, and the Russian Space Agency provides dehydrated as well as 
ready-to-eat fare. Helms said the Russian offerings added to the variety.

NASA nutritionist Beverly Swango said space food has evolved along with the 
space program, and the need for better-tasting, more diverse food offerings 
increases with the length of missions.

Shuttle astronauts can tolerate adding water to dehydrated fare because a 
two-week flight ''is literally like a camping trip,'' Swango said. Water is a 
plentiful byproduct of the systems that produce electricity aboard the 
shuttle, and the need to limit weight aboard the spacecraft increases the 
acceptance of mushy vegetables.

But different systems aboard the station do not produce water, so hydrated 
food is more practical.

The foods have a five-year shelf life, but thick soups, yogurt and meat 
entrees contain no more preservatives than food on grocery store shelves, 
Swango said. The food is ''thermostabilized''- a process much like 
pasteurization - and then packaged in high-tech soft aluminum pouches that 
keep contents fresh. The Russian ready-to-eat foods come in cans.

And, NASA's thermostabilized fare is cheaper to produce. Swango said it takes 
several days to siphon moisture for dehydrated foods, while the ready-to-eat 
vittles are simply cooked and packaged.

''You can get the high quality out of this as you do frozen food,'' she said. 
''The bread pudding came from (chef) Emeril's cookbook.''

Dr. Bernard Harris, a former astronaut who flew shuttle missions in 1993 and 
1995, said it would have been nice to have the thermostabilized food when he 
was in orbit. Harris is now vice president of Space Media Inc., a subsidiary 
of Spacehab Inc., the parent company of Johnson Engineering and 
thespacestore.com.

''Just like on the ground, you get hungry,'' he said. ''I've tasted some of 
the food they're preparing, and it actually is very good. The variety is much 
improved from when I was a shuttle astronaut.''

Justiz was a Houston radio personality when she started selling space-related 
products out of her basement as a hobby in 1997. Two years later, she retired 
from radio to focus on the business.

She started selling items like mission badges, replicas of flight suits for 
newborns, memorabilia and toys for space buffs. The addition of real space 
food - not those peanut butter sticks touted as space food in the 1970s - 
came this year, selling for $6.95 per package. She also sells a few 
dehydrated Russian space food items for $8.95 per package.

''I'd been trying to think of a way for a couple of years to sell real space 
food because people are really interested in it,'' Justiz said.

Penn Burris, who runs American Outdoor Products, a camping company in 
Boulder, Colo., wanted to buy bulk supplies to be resold to campers, hikers 
and others who favor the outdoors. A subsidiary of his company, Backpackers 
Pantry, manufactures 60 dehydrated foods for campers, but NASA's ready-to-eat 
fare would appeal to campers who prefer not to boil water.

''It's a novelty in the backpacking industry, with no cooking required,'' he 
said.

Justiz couldn't meet his request because she sells only what NASA doesn't 
send into orbit.

With three astronauts aboard the station and small crews on periodic shuttle 
flights, Johnson Engineering, nestled in one of the nondescript buildings on 
the grounds of the Johnson Space Center, doesn't need to mass-produce the 
fare, Justiz said.

Helms said the thermostabilized food was by far her favorite while in space 
from March to August, but even good-tasting meals get boring. And some 
things, like fresh eggs and crisp lettuce, just can't make it in space - yet.

''I really missed fresh vegetables and just making a salad,'' she said. ''At 
five months we hit a wall in terms of the food.''


--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts ---
multipart/alternative
  text/plain (text body -- kept)
  text/html
---