Space & Astronomy

Astronauts create first ever food baked in space

By T.K. Randall
January 24, 2020

Image: International Space Station
Credit: (PD) NASA It's something we take for granted here on Earth, but in a zero-gravity environment the process of baking food is something that astronauts have had surprisingly little experience with.

Now though, a new experiment designed to explore cooking options for long-haul space missions has seen the crew of the International Space Station undertake a spot of rudimentary baking.

To create the cosmic cookies, astronauts Luca Parmitano and Christina Koch baked the dough to determine the ideal cooking temperature and timing.It turned out that baking takes much longer in space - over two hours - compared to 25 minutes on terra firma. A special prototype oven was also needed to heat them up safely aboard the ISS.

Unfortunately for the astronauts there won't be an opportunity to taste the finished product just yet - instead they will be sent back down to Earth for testing to ensure that they are safe to eat.

If all goes well however, freshly baked goods could very well be on the menu during future missions.

We made space cookies and milk for Santa this year. Happy holidays from the @Space_Station! pic.twitter.com/sZS4KdPmhj

— Christina H Koch (@Astro_Christina) December 26, 2019

Source: BBC News

Tags: ISS, Cookies