What do astronauts eat for breakfast? What do astronauts eat? (13 photos)

Space products are very different from the food we are used to, primarily in their composition, manufacturing and packaging. In this review, you will read how the best chefs and scientists developed space food, you will see space products different countries and find out how many calories make up the daily diet of a modern Russian cosmonaut.

The first person to try space food directly in orbit, of course, was Yuri Gagarin. Despite the fact that his flight took only 108 minutes and the astronaut did not have time to get hungry, the launch plan included a meal.

After all, this was the first flight of a man into the Earth's orbit, and scientists did not know at all whether the astronaut would be able to eat normally in zero gravity, whether the body would take food. As packaging for food, tubes were used, which had previously been successfully tested in aviation. Inside were meat and chocolate.

Yuri Gagarin before the start

And already German Titov had a full meal three times during the 25-hour flight. His diet consisted of three courses - soup, pate and compote. But upon returning to Earth, he still complained of dizziness from hunger. So in the future, space nutrition specialists began to develop special products that would be as nutritious, effective and well absorbed by the body as possible.

Tubes with the first Soviet space food

In 1963, a separate laboratory appeared at the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, fully dealing with the issue of space nutrition. It still exists.

Participants of the Soviet flight Soyuz-Apollo take food

The Americans during the first flights went the other way. The first space food for US astronauts was dried food that had to be diluted with water. The quality of this food was unimportant, so experienced space explorers tried to secretly carry normal products with them into the rocket.

There is a case when astronaut John Young took a sandwich with him. But eating it in weightless conditions turned out to be incredibly difficult. And the bread crumbs, having scattered throughout the spacecraft, turned the life of the crew members into a nightmare for a long time.

By the 1980s, Soviet and American space food had become quite tasty and varied. In the USSR, about three hundred items of products were produced that were available to astronauts during the flight. Now this number has halved.

The first set of American space food

Technology

Nowadays, the famous tubes of space food are practically not used. Now the products are stored in vacuum packaging, having undergone a freeze-drying procedure before that.

This labor-intensive process involves the removal of moisture from frozen products using a special technology, which allows them to almost completely (95 percent) retain nutrients, trace elements, vitamins, natural smell, taste, and even their original shape. At the same time, such food can be stored without any damage to the quality for up to five (!) Years, regardless of temperature and other storage conditions.

Scientists have learned how to dry almost any product in this way, even cottage cheese. The latter, by the way, is one of the most popular products on the International Space Station. Foreign cosmonauts almost line up for the opportunity to taste this dish, which is part of the diet of Russian colleagues.

Modern Russian space food

Russian space food

The daily diet of a Russian cosmonaut is 3,200 calories divided into four meals. At the same time, the daily food of one person in orbit costs our space department 18-20 thousand rubles. And it's not so much the cost of the products themselves and their manufacture, but the high price for the delivery of goods into space (5-7 thousand dollars per kilogram of weight).

As mentioned above, in the eighties of the twentieth century there were about three hundred names of Soviet space products. Now this list has been reduced to one hundred and sixty. At the same time, new dishes are constantly appearing, and old ones go down in history. For example, in last years The diet of the astronauts included mixed hodgepodge, mushroom soup, stewed vegetables with rice, green bean salad, Greek salad, canned poultry meat, scrambled eggs with chicken liver, chicken meat with nutmeg and other products.

And among the long-lived cosmic dishes that have existed until our time since the sixties, we can mention Ukrainian borscht, chicken fillet, entrecote, beef tongue and special bread that does not crumble.

At the same time, a significant drawback is the absence of a refrigerator and a microwave oven in the Russian part of the International Space Station. So our cosmonauts, unlike their foreign colleagues, have no access to semi-finished products and quick-frozen foods, including fresh vegetables and fruits.

American space food

But there is a refrigerator in the American segment of the ISS, which makes their diet richer and more varied. However, recently Americans have also begun to move away from semi-finished products to sublimated products. And if earlier their ratio was 70 to 30, now it is already 50 to 50.

Space food set for Space Shuttle crews

Americans eat hamburgers in orbit

Apart from the ability to use semi-finished products by heating them in the microwave, American space food is not much different from Russian. The only difference is in the layout of the dishes, and the main products are the same. But there is also a certain specificity. For example, Americans prefer citrus fruit, while Russians like apples and grapes.

The love of American astronauts for citrus fruits

Other countries

But for astronauts from other countries, their space nutritionists sometimes create products that are completely unusual for us, or even frankly exotic products. For example, Japanese space explorers, even in orbit, cannot do without sushi, noodle soup, soy sauce and many types of green tea.

Chinese taikunauts, however, eat quite traditional food - pork, rice and chicken. And the French are considered the biggest entertainers in terms of space diet. They take with them to orbit not only everyday food, but also delicacies, for example, truffle mushrooms. There is a known case when specialists from Roskosmos refused to allow a French astronaut to transport moldy cheese to Mir, fearing that it could disrupt the biological situation at the orbital station.

It should be noted separately that all space meals have an artificially increased level of calcium. Life in weightlessness negatively affects its amount in human body, which promises significant problems with the bones and the musculoskeletal system as a whole. So nutritionists are trying to at least partially deal with this problem at the level of a special diet.

Korean female astronaut having lunch in orbit

space food of the future

In the foreseeable future, significant changes in space food preparation technologies are not planned. Unless the diet will change a little - new dishes will appear and some old ones will go away. The menu of cosmonauts and astronauts will be formed according to the needs and tastes of a particular person. And NASA has already stated that it is considering creating a separate vegetarian menu for the participants of the Mars mission, the official launch of which could begin in the next two decades.

This mission, by the way, implies the use of not only space food prepared on Earth, but also the cultivation of food directly on board the ship. Scientists have been dreaming about this for many decades. And in the near future, their expectations may come true. After all, the safety of dairy and meat dishes not enough for a mission of several years. Therefore, the most logical way out of the situation is the appearance of a garden for growing fresh vegetables and fruits.

NASA Experimental Potato Farm

Human spaceflight is a complex undertaking. Especially considering that he is a living being that has natural needs: eat, sleep, and so on. Today we would like to tell you about the nutrition of astronauts, about how the best minds of science, engineering and cooking from different countries created food for the conquerors of the vast expanses of the Universe. We will talk about what astronauts ate in the past, what they eat now and what they will eat in the future.

The first person to try space food in orbit was, of course, our Yuri Gagarin. Although his flight lasted only 108 minutes, and the astronaut did not have time to get hungry during this time, one of the points of the launch plan was to eat. It was the first ever flight into Earth's orbit, and scientists had no idea whether the human body would be able to take food in zero gravity and whether the astronaut would be able to eat normally. Then tubes were used, which had previously been successfully tested in aviation. They had meat and chocolate.

Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin before the start.

German Titov managed to eat three meals during his 25-hour flight. The astronaut's diet consisted of 3 courses: soup, pate and compote. However, upon returning to Earth, he complained of dizziness from hunger, so further developments of specialists were focused on creating special products - the most nutritious, effective and well absorbed by the body.

The first Soviet space food in tubes.

Since 1963, the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences has a separate laboratory that deals exclusively with space nutrition.

Cosmonauts of the Soviet Soyuz-Apollo flight during a meal.

The space food of American astronauts during the first flights consisted of dried fruits, which were enough to be diluted with water. The quality of this food left much to be desired, so experienced astronauts tried to carry ordinary products with them into the rocket - naturally, secretly.

This is what the first set of food for American astronauts looks like.

Astronaut John Young once managed to get a sandwich into a rocket. However, it turned out to be very difficult to eat it in zero gravity: the bread crumbs from the roll then scattered throughout the ship, turning the life of the crew members into a real nightmare throughout the flight.

Closer to the 80s of the last century, the space food of the USSR and the USA became not only quite tasty, but also diverse. In the Soviet Union, about 300 items of products for astronauts were produced. Currently, their number has decreased by almost 2 times.

Nowadays, the legendary tubes of space food are almost never used. The current products for astronauts undergo a freeze-drying procedure and are stored in vacuum packaging. This process is time-consuming: moisture is removed from frozen products using a special technology, due to which almost all content (95%) of nutrients, microelements, vitamins, as well as taste, smell and original shape are preserved in them. In addition, such food can be stored without compromising quality for up to 5 years at any temperature and under any storage conditions.

In this way, scientists have learned to dry almost any product - even cottage cheese, which is one of the most popular products on the ISS. Cosmonauts from other countries almost line up to be able to try this dish (it is included in the diet of Russian cosmonauts).

The daily diet of our astronauts is 3200 calories; they are divided into 4 meals. The cost of daily food for one person in orbit is 18-20,000 rubles. This is mainly due to the high cost of delivering cargo to the ISS ($5-7,000 per 1 kg).

Modern food for Russian cosmonauts.

As we said above, compared to the 1980s, the current list of space products has been reduced by almost 2 times - to 160. At the same time, new dishes and products are constantly being created, and old ones are becoming a thing of the past. For example, in recent years, mushroom soup, mixed hodgepodge, green bean salad, stewed vegetables, Greek salad, scrambled eggs with chicken liver, chicken meat with nutmeg, canned poultry meat and other products have been included in the diet of astronauts.

Long-lived dishes that have existed to this day since the 1960s are: chicken fillet, Ukrainian borscht, beef tongue, entrecote and special bread that does not crumble.

Modern food for Russian cosmonauts.

One of significant shortcomings- the absence of a microwave oven and a refrigerator in the Russian segment of the ISS. Therefore, our cosmonauts, unlike their foreign counterparts, cannot afford quick-frozen foods and semi-finished products, including fresh fruits and vegetables.

There is a refrigerator in the American part of the ISS. As a result, their diet is richer and more varied. However, Americans have recently begun to actively eat sublimated foods (if earlier only 30 percent of astronauts ate them, now it is already half).

Space food for Space Shuttle crews.

American astronauts in orbit eat hamburgers.

If we do not take into account the possibility of using semi-finished products that can be heated in the microwave, then the food for American astronauts practically does not differ from ours: the main products are the same, the difference is only in the layout of the dishes. True, there is a certain specificity: if Americans prefer citrus fruits from fruits, then ours prefer grapes and apples.

Citrus fruits for American astronauts.

Astronauts from other countries have products that are completely unusual for us. For example, Japanese astronauts in orbit do not change their tastes - they eat sushi, noodle soup, soy sauce and, of course, green tea. Astronauts from China, however, eat our usual pork, rice and chicken. The French, lovers of delicacies, in addition to everyday food, even take truffle mushrooms with them into orbit. There was a case when specialists from Roskosmos had to forbid a French astronaut to bring moldy cheese to Mir, as they were afraid that the product could cause a violation of the biological situation at the orbital station.

Korean female astronaut during lunch in orbit.

For the foreseeable future, significant changes in the technology of preparing food for astronauts are not planned. Most likely, the diet will change a little: some dishes will go down in history, new ones will appear. The menu of space explorers will be formed depending on the taste and needs of each individual. And NASA is already considering developing a vegetarian menu for astronauts who will take part in the Mars mission, which may start within the next two decades.

This mission involves not only the use of space food prepared on Earth, but also the direct cultivation of food on board the spacecraft. Scientists have been dreaming about this for more than a decade, because it is hardly possible to ensure the safety of meat and dairy dishes for a mission lasting several years. Therefore, one of the most logical ways out of the situation is the creation of a garden where you can grow vegetables and fruits.

NASA's experimental potato garden.

Many people still believe that our astronauts, while in orbit, continue to eat some substance from tubes, washing it all down with drops of water hanging in the air. However, in reality, Russian researchers have long taken almost homemade food, fresh fruits and juices with them on space travel. The correspondent of the online edition of the site, without leaving his native planet, tried what astronauts eat, and found out how black caviar is eaten in space, what “dried” cottage cheese tastes like, why, together with Valentina Tereshkova, they wanted to send a real goat into orbit, and when space food will be sold in supermarkets.

Space as a premonition

Not only Yuri Alekseevich Gagarin and other cosmonauts were preparing for the first manned flight into space, but also workers in the food industry. Although at that time it was not yet known whether a person, being in zero gravity for a long time, could swallow food at all. Nevertheless, for the first flight, nine types of products were prepared in tubes: pureed soups, main courses, juice, canned food in a 100-gram jar, and even natural sandwiches. The technology for making bread then - almost 60 years ago - and now is not very different: it is made, as they say, in one bite, so that the crumbs do not scatter all over the spacecraft. Having made the flight, Yuri Gagarin confirmed that it is possible to eat in space. He also highly appreciated the food prepared for him "on the road" in terms of taste.

While the astronauts spent a small amount of time in flight - from several hours to several days, they could well eat food from tubes, especially since natural vegetables and fruits, pies with various fillings, and even sandwiches with black caviar and meatballs went into orbit with them. which made the diet more varied. However, at that time, spacecraft were not yet equipped with special devices for hydration, to dilute food, and to heat food, so it was not possible to fully feel at home on board a spacecraft.

As the duration of flights increased, the task of providing astronauts with food as close as possible to the earth became more and more urgent. Moreover, the food in the tubes quickly became boring and long months astronauts could not eat it.

Cook at home

Freeze-dried food, with which our astronauts are now sent on a flight, has become a real lifesaver for them. Such food looks a little strange, representing hard bars highly compressed in vacuum packaging.

Sublimation is a long and costly process. First, food is prepared in the usual way, just like at home. Then the food is poured into special "trays" and placed in a sublimator - a machine in which it is dried. However, not everything is so simple. Before drying, the product is frozen at a temperature of minus 30-50 degrees, while the food is in a vacuum. Then, slow heating begins at a temperature of plus 50-70 degrees, at which water is removed, which is there in the form of ice crystals.

If under normal conditions moisture appears during defrosting, then there is nothing like that in the sublimator due to vacuum and slow heating. Ice turns into steam, so that the cell of the product does not collapse and the nutrients from it do not evaporate. The mass and volume of sublimated food are reduced significantly, but beneficial features it is preserved almost in full - up to 97 percent. Then the finished product is placed in another special bag. By the way, it serves as both a package and a kind of "plate".

Photo gallery

The Indian military destroyed a space satellite in low Earth orbit during a missile test, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in an address to the nation.1 of 5

Due to their unusual appearance, some freeze-dried dishes can only be identified by the name on the label. But here is a wide variety of all kinds of products: here and mashed pork, and borscht with meat, and pickle, and beetroot salad, and Bulgarian beans, and cottage cheese with several types of toppings.

Victor Dobrovolsky
Photo: website / Lidia Shironina

By the way, Victor Dobrovolsky, chief designer of space nutrition at the Research Institute of Food Concentration Industry and Special Food Technology, a branch of the Federal State Budgetary Institution "Federal Research Center for Nutrition and Biotechnology", says that cottage cheese with nut filling is especially popular with our cosmonauts and is an integral part of their diet. As the correspondent of the site was convinced, this product is preferred for a reason - this cottage cheese is really very tasty.

At the same time, sweets that go into space look just like earthly ones. For example, lollipops, toffee or marmalade slices differ only in that they are placed in a vacuum package. Astronauts also take coffee, tea, juices freeze-dried to a powder state, and all kinds of canned food in small 100-gram jars with them on a flight. In addition, fresh fruits and vegetables are sent into space - processed from microbes and wrapped in special packaging.

Sublimates are the future

As you can imagine, there are no plates or cups on the ISS. And the cooking process itself is as simple as possible - astronauts take a bag of food, open it and "cook" it in accordance with the instructions - add water (cold or heated to a certain temperature). Then they wait for several minutes, knead the swollen component and ... eat practically homemade food, since the "powder" under the influence of water takes the form of an originally cooked dish, as if the soup or the second had just been removed from the stove. Such freeze-dried food is unlikely to get bored - there is too much variety. And the menu is constantly being refined: food workers are constantly testing more and more new products that can be sent into space.

But the testing of space food takes place on Earth - in the cosmonaut training center in Star City. There, they not only evaluate the taste of food, but also train to eat it correctly in weightless conditions.

For each cosmonaut, in addition to the obligatory calorie content of the daily diet, a special individual set is prepared, in which, for example, a dish can be salted more or less or sugar can be added.

Photo gallery

The Indian military destroyed a space satellite in low Earth orbit during a missile test, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced in an address to the nation.1 of 9

Experts say that in the future, when people begin to regularly fly to the Moon and Mars, sublimated food will be the basis of the diet. Tablets are unlikely to replace "earthly" food, at least until humanity forgets how to chew and the need for teeth disappears as a rudiment. Now on the ISS astronauts grow some greens (dill, parsley, onion, lettuce), it is possible that in the future more "serious" crops will grow in the space greenhouse, for example, cucumbers and potatoes. Moreover, there will be enough time to harvest - to fly to Mars for a whole year.

Viktor Dobrovolsky says that our cosmonauts do not have any exotic wishes regarding gastronomic delights. Sometimes they ask to send them tangerines, confectionery, sausages - that is, industrial products. Buying such things in a store and sending a "package" into space will not work - all products are purchased and controlled in advance. Special attention paid to microbiological safety - there must be a 100% guarantee that not a single microbe will enter orbit, because it is not known how this or that microorganism will behave in zero gravity.

During the preparation of space food for "terrestrial" purposes, no preservatives are added either, and the storage time is achieved solely through technology - absolutely the same as for preparing food for space flight.

Space products are very different from the food we are used to, primarily in their composition, manufacturing and packaging. In this review, you will read how the best chefs and scientists developed space food, see space products from different countries and find out how many calories are in the daily diet of a modern Russian cosmonaut.

Yuri Gagarin before the start

Tubes with the first Soviet space food

In 1963, a separate laboratory appeared at the Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, fully dealing with the issue of space nutrition. It still exists.

Participants of the Soviet flight Soyuz-Apollo take food

The first set of American space food

Technology

Nowadays, the famous tubes of space food are practically not used. Now the products are stored in vacuum packaging, having undergone a freeze-drying procedure before that.

Modern Russian space food

Russian space food

As mentioned above, in the eighties of the twentieth century there were about three hundred items of Soviet space products. Now this list has been reduced to one hundred and sixty. At the same time, new dishes are constantly appearing, and old ones go down in history. For example, in recent years, hodgepodge, mushroom soup, stewed vegetables with rice, green bean salad, Greek salad, canned poultry meat, chicken liver omelet, chicken meat with nutmeg and other products have been included in the diet of astronauts.

American space food

Space food set for Space Shuttle crews

Americans eat hamburgers in orbit

The love of American astronauts for citrus fruits

Other countries

It should be noted separately that all space meals have an artificially increased level of calcium. Life in weightlessness negatively affects its amount in the human body, which promises significant problems with the bones and the musculoskeletal system as a whole. So nutritionists are trying to at least partially deal with this problem at the level of a special diet.

Korean female astronaut having lunch in orbit

space food of the future

This mission, by the way, implies the use of not only space food prepared on Earth, but also the cultivation of food directly on board the ship. Scientists have been dreaming about this for many decades. And in the near future, their expectations may come true. After all, the safety of dairy and meat dishes is not enough for a mission of several years. Therefore, the most logical way out of the situation is the appearance of a garden for growing fresh vegetables and fruits.

NASA Experimental Potato Farm

Guys, we put our soul into the site. Thanks for that
for discovering this beauty. Thanks for the inspiration and goosebumps.
Join us at Facebook and In contact with

Do you know how astronauts are fed in orbit? Why is a special space beer being prepared and what kind of Russian delicacy do people line up on the ISS for? We are in website found out what space food is and how astronauts are surprised by the best chefs in the world.

Russia

Biryulevsky Experimental Plant is the only official Russian manufacturer of food for astronauts. Yuri Gagarin was the first to try food in space. He had three 160g tubes for breakfast: two with meat and one with chocolate.

Today Russian cosmonauts eat porridge and cottage cheese for breakfast. Queues line up on the ISS for cottage cheese - astronauts from other countries adore this delicacy. The Russian module on the ISS does not have a refrigerator or microwave, which complicates food preparation and menu development.

Cottage cheese, borscht, meat puree and meat in sauce. There are special requirements for space food: it must be light, easy to prepare in orbit, and leave no waste. For example, Russian scientists have developed cosmic bread that does not crumble.

Chewing gum is an astronaut's best friend in zero gravity, where tartar is more active due to insufficient salivation.

All products that Russian cosmonauts receive must undergo mandatory certification. They can't just order pickles from the store. But ordinary people can buy kits with space food in planetariums throughout Russia.

Russian cosmonauts can leave applications for what they would like to try in space. The daily ration is designed for four meals a day and is based on the astronaut's consumption of 3200 calories. Condensed milk is one of the most high-calorie foods.

Despite the inscriptions, the tubes contain not Russian vodka, but borscht. Soviet cosmonauts were surprised by such gifts from their American colleagues after the successful Soyuz-Apollo docking.

Russian cosmonauts receive fruits and vegetables from Earth. On the ISS they have a decent selection - about 300 dishes and products. Astronauts from different countries go to each other's modules for dinner and lunch, tasting food from different countries, and every Sunday they have a joint lunch.

USA

Pasta with meat in sauce. To make the dish appetizing and edible, you just need to add water. Most American food is vacuum packed. They are cheaper to transport, easier to heat in the microwave, and keep well in the refrigerator.

Shrimp cocktail salad. Thanks to vacuum packaging, space food retains all the beneficial properties and vitamins. Astronauts in orbit must consume foods rich in calcium. Americans eat yogurt with berries and peaches, while Russians get cheese with herbs and garlic.

Guacamole. NASA astronauts may be asked to add some of their favorite foods and drinks sold in a regular store to the menu. The main thing is that the food does not crumble, be light and transportable.

Bacon bits are a favorite treat in orbit. All products can be divided into fresh with a 48-hour shelf life, meat with an extended shelf life, medium moisture products with an extended shelf life, natural products (nuts, biscuits, etc.) and cooked with heat that kills all bacteria and germs .

Assorted M&M's, cheese, spinach and powdered orange soda. When drinking soda in zero gravity, gas and liquid in the stomach separate from each other and a person has a burp. Because of this, beer and Coke are specially crafted for space.

An analogue of a tortilla burger made by an astronaut in honor of Burger Day on the ISS. Ordinary bread crumbles, so American astronauts eat tortillas.

Thanksgiving Dinner: mashed potatoes, smoked turkey, corn filling, cranberry sauce. In honor of special occasions, the best chefs in the world cook for astronauts, and delicacies from different countries, such as French truffles, get to the ISS.

Italy

When sending astronauts to the ISS, the European Space Agency creates a special menu for them, consisting of dishes of national cuisine.

For many years astronauts begged to replace instant coffee something delicious. The situation was changed by the Italian astronauts, who brought into orbit an excellent coffee maker designed specifically for weightless conditions by the Italian coffee companies Lavazza and Agrotec.

Agrotec has also created space lasagne, a 100% organic, salt-free product with a 36-month shelf life.

Italian day on the ISS. In honor of the successful completion of the mission, the astronauts received Italian treats - olives, dried tomatoes, fettuccine pasta with sauce and risotto.

Korea

Kimchi is the signature dish of Korea. This is sauerkraut seasoned with red pepper, onion, garlic and ginger. Today, canned kimchi is produced for astronauts, including Russian ones.

One of the differences between Korean space food is the consistency. Instead of dry and frozen food, Koreans make dishes that look like a cross between a thick mashed soup and a sauce. It is important for astronauts to feel the maximum taste, because in zero gravity a person loses his sense of taste and smell, which affects the perception of food in space.