It refers to food processed by special techniques and specially eaten in the space environment.

Space food includes food and drinking water for astronauts during their mission in space and when they return to land and wait for rescue. Due to the different space environment and the characteristics of astronauts' life and work, many special requirements have been put forward for space food, such as small size, light weight, rich nutrition, and convenient eating. After continuous improvements by scientists, the types and varieties of space food have become close to those on the ground.

Specific requirements:

1. First of all, food safety must be ensured, and no food-borne diseases or food poisoning can occur.

2. Food and packaging must be able to withstand the special environmental factors of aerospace, such as impact, vibration, acceleration, etc. without failure.

3. Space food needs to be carried from the earth to space. Considering that the launch of a manned spacecraft is expensive, in order to save the space of the spacecraft and the payload during launch, space food should be as light in weight and small in size as possible. Good nutrition.

4. From a nutritional perspective, space food must meet the requirements of astronauts’ physiological changes under weightless conditions. Spaceflight will cause the astronauts to lose bone calcium, muscle atrophy, and reduce the number of red blood cells. The nutrients in the food must be appropriately adjusted according to the physiological change index of the astronauts.

5. In order to facilitate astronauts to eat under weightless conditions in space and prevent food from floating around in the spacecraft cabin, space food is generally processed into bite-sized pieces, and there is generally no flowing soup in the food packaging. Also known as "one-bite" food.

6. In order to reduce the burden on the waste collection system in the spacecraft cabin, space food does not contain bones, skin, core and other residues.

7. Considering that during long-term flights in space, astronauts are in a state of weightlessness and in a small space, and their appetite is easy to decrease, which will affect the astronauts' work efficiency and physical health. Space food must be rich in variety and variety to stimulate the astronauts' appetite.

Extended information

Chinese aerospace food:

Among the world’s aerospace foods, China’s aerospace food has Chinese characteristics, especially traditional Chinese dishes. Appearing in aerospace recipes, it is more colorful, fragrant and delicious than Western food.

The main characteristics of China’s aerospace food are as follows: in form, it is mainly Chinese food, and the combined aerospace meals have obvious Chinese food characteristics and can meet the taste requirements of astronauts. For example, the meals include staple foods and As for non-staple food, the staple food is mainly rice and noodles. The non-staple food pays attention to the combination of meat and vegetables, and the processing pays attention to the color, flavor and shape.

During the Shenzhou-5 period, China had a variety of aerospace foods with strong Chinese characteristics such as eight-treasure rice, tangerine peel beef, soy sauce beef, lotus seed porridge, green tea, cuttlefish balls, beef balls, etc. It has strong Chinese characteristics. ?

Chinese people have the habit of drinking tea after meals. Our country’s aerospace medicine experts have also invented this tea beverage with simple packaging and convenient drinking. When drinking, you only need to go through a one-way hole on the packaging bag. The valve injects water, kneads the packaging bag, and when it is fully absorbed and restored by the water, you can open the packaging and eat.

Freeze-dried food is the food with the most aerospace characteristics. It uses freeze-drying technology to remove all moisture from food, retaining the original shape and nutritional content of the material to the greatest extent, and can be eaten directly. Generally, fruits and vegetables that are not resistant to cooking can be processed in this way.

Baidu Encyclopedia - Space Food

Baidu Encyclopedia - Space Food