THE NEW YORK TIMES: What’s on the menu for the four astronauts on stuck on Artemis II 10 days straight?

What’s on the menu for four astronauts stuck in a small capsule for 10 days straight?

The Artemis II astronauts have scheduled times for breakfast, lunch and dinner with set menus based on their personal preferences and nutritional needs.

Some foods on the Orion capsule are ready-to-eat, while others need to be rehydrated with water on board.

The crew on Monday, recently woke up and started their flyby day breakfast.

NASA officials said it includes breakfast sausage, couscous with nuts, strawberries, tortillas, maple-top muffin, apple-cinnamon oatmeal, scrambled eggs, grits and butters, mango salad and a sausage patty.

Other meal options include granola with blueberries, vegetable quiche, barbecued beef brisket, spicy green beans, and macaroni and cheese.

The foods were formulated and selected to reduce the risk of crumbs floating around the capsule in microgravity.

Each astronaut is allowed two flavored beverages per day, including coffee, green tea, a mango-peach smoothie, lemonade or apple cider.

There are a total of 43 cups of coffee, nine condiments and five hot sauces on board. To satisfy any cravings for sweets, there are cookies, chocolate, cake and candy-coated almonds.

The crew uses a portable water dispenser to rehydrate food and drink packages, and a food warmer to heat them up.

Food scientists in the Space Food Systems Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center worked with the crew long before launch day to craft their individualised space meals. They sampled and rated foods based on their preferences.

The challenge was balancing nutrition, safety and personal taste while adhering to strict mass and volume limits in the compact cabin, Xulei Wu, NASA’s food system manager, said in a NASA video.

Food is responsible not only for “the calories, micronutrients for crew members, but also boosting crew morale,” she said. “It’s very important.”

The science of space food has made significant strides since the beginning of the Space Age.

The earliest space foods were bite-size, suitable for eating with fingers, or puréed and squeezed directly into the mouth from a toothpaste-like tube.

Astronauts aboard the Apollo 7 mission in 1968 ate cinnamon-flavoured bread cubes, applesauce, chicken salad and cheese sandwiches with little room for personal modifications.

Flight menus underwent many modifications throughout the program after astronauts were found to have nutritional imbalances, significant body weight loss and in-flight nausea.

Apollo 14 was the first time a space crew returned to Earth without a significant change in body weight, according to “Biomedical Results of Apollo,” a publication released by NASA.

Christina Koch, one of the astronauts on Artemis II, said in the NASA video that sharing meals with fellow crew members in space “represents togetherness and something a little out of the ordinary.”

“It’s like a camping trip,” she said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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