![]() NASA funded research at the Army Natick Laboratories, which was able to develop special gravies that, when freeze-dried, could be reconstituted with 80-degree water in just five minutes. Previously, reconstituting dried food required boiling (or near-boiling) water, and most foods needed a good 20 minutes to prepare. Among other requirements, the team was looking for “food that could be reconstituted in cold (approximately 80 ☏) water,” according to the 1971 report, in just 10 minutes or less. The astronauts complained, and for the Gemini missions, NASA went back to work. Not only were the foods unappetizing, but they were hard to rehydrate and prone to sending crumbs floating into the spacecraft’s instruments. In the earliest human missions, the Mercury flights, astronauts ate bite-sized cubes, freeze-dried powders, and semi-liquids squeezed out of aluminum tubes like toothpaste. None of these methods of preserving is new, but NASA has contributed to and stimulated advances in this area,” explains a 1971 report prepared for the Agency’s Technology Utilization Office. “Of these, the most prominent are: dehydration, freeze-drying, intermediate moisture, pasteurization by irradiation, and nitrogen packing. NASA funded research on an array of possible food preservation techniques. Food needed to be shelf-stable and long lasting, and it needed to pack small and light and be easy to prepare. In the early days of the space program, one of the many problems to solve was feeding the astronauts during their time away from Earth. But first, astronauts brought it on trips into orbit-and NASA helped create a novelty ice cream treat to connect young museum visitors to the wonder of space exploration. Hikers carry it on backwoods treks and doomsday preppers stock it in their basements. It’s in the baby food aisle and next to the dried apricots. Amazing.Freeze-dried food, today, is commonplace. This process continues for hours, resulting, over time in a perfect freeze-dried ice cream slice that keeps the ice cream totally intact, minus any moisture. ![]() Finally, a freezing coil traps the vaporized water. Next heat is applied, vaporizing the ice. The air pressure is lowered, forcing air out of the chamber. It's a fiendishly complex process that can be summarised thus: The ice cream is placed in a vacuum chamber and frozen until the water crystallizes. How can this be? Freeze drying is the process that has been applied to astronaut food since the early days when eating the right stuff was as important as having it. It can even be stored for years without refrigeration, so long as it remains in its foil wrapper. It doesn't look like real ice cream, yet tastes like ice cream. All of which makes this authentic all-American Astro-snack a technological marvel in its own right. It looks dry and feels dry to the touch, yet, by simply tearing open the foil outer and popping the freeze-dried block into the mouth (thereby re-hydrating it in the process) astronauts find that, more often than not, the unappetizing-looking substance explodes with flavour. Ingredients include milk, cream, nonfat milk, sugar, corn syrup, strawberries, cocoa processed with alkali, whey solids, contains less than 1% mono and diglycerides, guar gum, locust bean gum, carrageenan, vanilla extract, natural flavors.įreeze drying is like sending food into suspended animation. These products are manufactured by the same company that supplies freeze-dried foods to NASA for the Space Shuttle missions. ![]() Originally developed for the early Apollo missions, food is frozen to -40 degrees F and then vacuum dried and placed in a special foil pouch. This is the kind you find at science museums at two or three times the price.
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