Discomfort Food

In chapter fifteen (Discomfort Food), Mary Roach begins to tell us about when they prepared to send food to eat in a space capsule.  The Gemini III capsule was no bigger than the interior of a sports car. Due to its limited size, they needed to focus on the “caloric density”: packing the most nutrition and energy into the smallest volume of food.  An example of this is when you take bacon and compress it under a hydraulic press and make it into a bacon square.  On March 23, 1965, a corned beef sandwich was launched into space. Astronaut Wally Schirra convinced astronaut John Young to smuggle it on board he Gemini III. This incident violated about sixteen of the formal manufacturing requirements for “Beef Sandwiches, Dehydrated (Bite-sized).” Compresses food not only took up less stowage but it was also less likely to crumble.  Unlike the corned beef sandwich, a sandwich cube can be eaten in a single bite. In its original form, the sandwich would crumb in zero gravity, which would cause it to float in air. Space food is created in the intent to give the astronaut all the proteins and supplements the astronaut needs to survive. The paste to them isn’t too tasty and becomes old.  NASA spent a lot of money to figure out the best form of food that should be sent for the astronaut to consume while in space. The amount of food in recent decades has grown a little nicer and more normal. Meals are no longer have to be compressed or dehydrated because there’s plenty of storage room.