‘Chef complimented

Press, 25 June 1983, Page 10

‘Chef complimented

NZPA Houston Going hungry was one thing the American space shuttle astronauts did not have to worry about when it looked as though their mission might be extended a day or two. “I think Rita packed enough food for us to stay up six, eight, 10 days,” said the flight commander, Captain Robert Crippen. Thanks to Rita Rapp, Challenger’s crew has dined from a menu that has 20 beverages and 75 foods, including steak, shrimp cocktail, Italian vegetables, smoked turkey, and cauliflower with cheese. During a midweek dinner one of the astronauts even dished, up compliments to the chef, asking the ground communicator to “tell Rita the barbecue is great.” Space eating has im-

proved a lot in the two decades since Miss Rapp took charge. “In the Mercury programme, the food was in metal tubes, like toothpaste, and the astronauts squeezed it into their mouths,” she said. That was thought to be the only way people could ever eat in space because of weightlessness. Food will not stay on the plate, as on Earth, and engineers worried that droplets of food floating around the cockpit would contaminate equipment. But Miss Rapp helped develop a way of partially drying food and compressing it into bite-sized cubes, which were coated with gelatin to reduce crumbs. It was terrific engineering, but lousy dining, she said. “They didn’t have the cor-

rect texture or feel,” she said. “What we sent up, we usually got back.” Searching for a more palatable solution, Miss Rapp scored her “big breakthrough” when she prepared pouches of rehydratable turkey and dressing for the Apollo 8 astronauts on Christmas Eve, 1968. “It was determined that surface tension (of the liquid) held the food on the spoon. If you very carefully aimed, you could get it to your mouth. If you hit your arm, though, it goes bouncing all over,” she said. Today’s astronauts, in addition to an expanded menu, have condiments — liquid salt and pepper, hot sauce and ketchup — and snack items, such as real nuts and biscuits.