Whilebreadis presently banned on the International Space Station , it will presently make its mode back into astronauts ’ diets thanks toBake in Space , a German project aimed at develop a lettuce maker and pelf that can safely be used in microgravity , asNew ScientistandAtlas Obscurareport .
The culinary basic is currently banned from infinite missions because in space , crumbs can be severe . Currently , if an astronaut wants aPB&J , they have to use a tortilla .
Bake in Space hopes to evolve a organization that can make reinvigorated German - style bread rolls in microgravity , giving space travelers a semblance of Earthly normalcy at dinnertime . As missions to far - flung destination like Mars become more plausible , astronauts will need to be able to feed themselves for year on end , and being able to make a sassy loaf of bread would be a portion more pleasant for a homesick crew than exclusively use up pre - packaged space nutrient .
shekels has n’t always been abstracted from space missions . A contraband sandwich on the 1965 Gemini 3 mission caused a major incident . Astronaut John Young had sneakily brought acorned beef sandwichonto the flight in his spacesuit . When he took it out for a bite , little bits of rye bread begin floating throughout the cabin . It did n’t cause a disaster , but the crumbs could have gotten into a crewmember ’s heart or into delicate equipment in the ballistic capsule .
Young quick put the sandwich back into his sac , but he got an going-over about it when he return to Earth . The U.S. House of Representatives appropriations citizens committee held a encounter about the incident , in part because congressmen were overturned that the astronauts were smuggling food into blank rather of test out the gamey - tech food for thought that had been developed specially for them .
Bread did make it back into space , but it was n’t your average loaf . While Apollo astronauts madesandwichesand consume bite - sized cinnamon sugar , the bread was coated in a stratum of gelatin to prevent it from crumble . The NASA pic above is from the 1985 Discovery space shuttle .
Bake in Space is process with engineers , nutrient scientists , and Earth - bound bakers to rise its distance staff of life , which is scheduled for testing on a 2018 European Space Agency stumble to the International Space Station . The ship’s company has yet to spring up a formula , though , and is still working out how it will be made . The loaves will need to balance out the pauperism for crumble - free lucre with astronauts ’ understandable desire not to eat rock - hard rolls . Somehow , they ’ll have to come up with a manner to make a downlike moolah that will rest crumb - free .
[ h / tAtlas Obscura ]
