Out of Orbit by Chris Jones Page A

envelope.
    ·   ·   ·
    Their quest began first with breakfast, then lunch, then dinner. In their daily schedule, eating occupied much of their waking life. Each member of Expedition Six had a personal menu (although Pettit’s remained tailored to Don Thomas’s culinary wishes), built into that strict eight-day rotation. At the end of the cycle, they would go back to the beginning and start plowing through it again. It didn’t help that, because of their general state of zero-gravity congestion—their faces swollen with fluid and sinuses blocked—food tasted blander than it might otherwise. There are stories of shuttle astronauts having filled their two-week-long menus with the same few meals, indulging in stacks of their favorite foods, only to crack open the first pouch and find something inside that tasted like puke. Variety, then, is important. So, too, is making a couple of zippy selections, such as shrimp cocktail (probably the most popular food in space because of the horseradish) and spaghetti with spicy meatballs. Still, Pettit remained grateful for his cans of green chiles, which he sprinkled on just about everything he ate. He had opened his first can with his crewmates, who wrinkled their noses at the acquired taste. Thus freed from the social obligation of sharing, Pettit guarded his littlesupply as if they were gold coins, recalling the food wars on STS-40, when taco sauce became currency, traded for favors and hidden away in secret stashes. The astronauts on board that flight even drizzled taco sauce on their Rice Krispies in the morning, just so they would have something to taste.
    For astronauts tucked away inside station, food selection is even more critical—not just for flavor but to fight their body’s inevitable decay. They can’t go off their appetites; they can’t get caught up in dreams about a steaming hot pizza fresh from the box or Peggy Whitson’s steak and Caesar salad. Each day, they have to push through all that they have to choose from, three nutrient-packed meals with plenty of snacks in between.
    In the case of Expedition Six, NASA’s food laboratory had balanced their diets between six categories: Beverage (B), Rehydratable (R), Intermediate Moisture (IM), Thermostabilized (T), Irradiated (I), and the rare, blissful Natural Form (NF). (Once in space, the food was divided by a more mouthwatering nomenclature, including “Vegetables, Soups, and Sides” and “Snacks, Sweets, and Yogurts.”) Because of space and weight limitations, not a lot was included in the way you might pull it off a grocery store shelf. In Nikolai Budarin’s case, crackers, buns, cookies, nuts, cinnamon rolls, and hard chocolate were about the only things he could eat without some kind of preparation, whether it was adding water to Day 7’s breakfast of Buckwheat Gruel (R), heating up Day 5’s always mysterious “Appetizing Appetizer” (T), or hauling into Day 4’s nuclear-fired BBQ Brisket (I). But it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. Each day boasted a thoughtful mix of Russian and American munchies with the occasional dash of more exotic inspiration, including Kharcho Mutton Soup, Peach Ambrosia, Pork with Lecho Sauce, and Jellied Pike Perch. Budarin had also fortified his menu with staples that he couldn’t do without and enjoyed almost daily: tea with lemon and sugar, gallons of apricot juice, and prunes stuffed with nuts. (They came in especially handy when Day 1’s thermostabilized meat loaf got caught in his pipes.)
    For all of them, but especially for Pettit, mealtime became a chance to experiment as well as to refuel. Eating became an elaborateform of performance art, infused with tricks and rituals that would have seemed laughable back on earth. It was all part of their adaptation. They learned that tortillas were better than more usual breads because they didn’t leave behind as many instrument-clogging crumbs, and drinks were always mixed in bags and taken through a straw to avoid