Space Food And Sailing With NASA

"One of the most beautiful and influential books ever written about space travel was?"The Conquest of Space," written in 1949.

It consisted of paintings of astronomical scenes by Chesley Bonestell who was an architectural draftsman, who attracted attention in the 1940s when he produced his famous views of the moon, Saturn and Jupiter for Life Magazine."

Essay by Arthur C. Clarke - "Greetings, Carbon-Based Bipeds! 1934-1998"

"The Conquest of Space,"?was by written by Willy Ley, one of the founders of the 1930s German Rocket Society - which included a teenager by the name of Werner von Braun.

On Apr. 9, 1959, NASA's first administrator, Dr. Keith Glennan announced the names of the agency's first group of astronauts at a news conference in Washington, D.C.?

The group photo below, is the original seven (7) Mercury astronauts that was taken on Jun. 1963 at the Manned Spacecraft Center, now named (President Lyndon) Johnson Space Center, in Houston, Texas.?

The astronauts below, left-to-right: Cooper, Schirra, Shepard, Grissom, Glenn, Slayton and Carpenter.

Initial qualifications for astronaut candidates

1. Males only - Between 25 and 40 years of age,

2. Less than 5-feet, 11-inches tall.

3. Possessing a Bachelor’s Degree.

The following century while touring the Smithsonian, I knew why Carpenter and Slayton seemed short - they needed to be. They were stuffed / packed in a noisy tight fitting tin-can projectile attached to a rocket mind you - as pictured below.

Imagine too - what re-entry through earth's atmosphere must have been like.

Meeting Carpenter and Slayton, and NASA in general, inspired me to get up early in the PST morning and watch nearly every EST 1960s and 1970s launches with my dad, enhanced with the colorful commentary of the late great and America's trust-worthy Walter Cronkite - on our black and white portable RCA TV - fully equipped with "My Favorite Martin - like" chrome rabbit ears.

Which eventually led to my late 1970s purchase of a bright orange motor driven Celestron 11-inch aperture telescope that I christened "Galilos Glass," inspired also by - watching every fresh episode (1966 to 1969) of Spock, Kirk and Scotty battling Klingons, tribbles and visiting the planet Vulcan - via NBC's Desilu Studios production of Star Trek.

The original well-trained and conditioned neophyte "Space Cowboys," were my first real life heroes - as they were for countless others - despite ones age.?

For me, because I followed and dreamed about outer space in my Alpha / Beta sleep Rapid Eye Motion cycles.

Collectively they shall always be America's All-American Right-Stuff.

Mercury / Atlas-7 capsule parachuted into the Atlantic just 15 minutes and 22 seconds later, after attaining a maximum velocity of 5,180 mph.

Shepard propelled America into the space race - as America's space program never looked back - just up, up, up.

Ask?the Russians.

Alan Shepard became the first American to eat solid food in space when he consumed small cubes of figs, chocolate, dates, and high-protein cereals aboard the?Mercury / Aurora 7 flight.

Back in the 1960s, Pillsbury’s food scientist?Dr. Howard Bauman early on?developed the edible cubes for Carpenter and other the astronauts to eat in space.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Pillsbury also marketed space food sticks for the non-astronaut public. They sold them as a fun snack that provided energy in the form of carbohydrates and protein.

Tang was not a spinoff of the NASA Space Program as many might think today.

In 1962, when astronaut and former US Senator John Glenn performed eating experiments while in orbit, Tang was selected for the menu, thus launching the powdered drink that heightened public awareness for decades now.

During the Gemini missions astronauts fed themselves by sucking out foods that were stored in tubes that were similar to your own worn Colgate / Crest toothpaste tubes in your sticky medicine cabinet of today - minus todays FDA's approved organic / non-GMO teeth whitener ingredients.

In 2022, some foods are dehydrated that's similar to packaged dried noodles. To make it edible, all the astronauts needed to do is simply add some measure distilled / sterilized H2O inside the package - via a sterilized syringe.?

Food evaluations are normally conducted approximately eight (8) to nine (9) months before a flight.

During food evaluation sessions, each astronaut is given the opportunity to sample a variety of foods and beverages available for flight. A pack of information is given to each astronaut to use in planning their personal preference menus. Included in the packet is a standard menu, training menu, past flight menus the astronaut has chosen, and the baseline shuttle food and beverage list.

Astronauts then select their menu approximately five (5) months before flight. The menus are analyzed for nutritional content by the Shuttle Dietitian and recommendations are made to correct any nutrient deficiencies based on the Recommended Dietary Allowances.

The menus are then finalized and provided to the Flight Equipment Processing Contractor (FEPC) in Houston three months before launch. The FEPC processes, packages, and stows the food in the mission locked and secured lockers

The meals for the Apollo 11 trip to the moon were color-coded, individually wrapped, and labeled for each day during their mission to the moon and back.

If something went wrong, such as the cabin losing pressure, Buzz-Light Year and Neil Armstrong had a back-up food source that would feed them through a port in their helmet, ensuring they wouldn’t have to take off their suits.

HACCP - HAZARD ANALYSIS (AND) CRITICAL CONTROL POINT(S)

The food safety and quality practices developed first for the Mercury flights were continued in the continuum of Gemini through the Apollo programs - to 2022s - Artemis space program.?

The concept of HA-SIP did not happen over night.?

Nope.?

No way.

One could say that it took a dollop or two of rocket-science just to get HACCP started.?

The last thing NASA needed to hear from the astronauts was / is:

"Aaah,?(crackle, pop, ugh, snap)?Houston - we have a problem with the food."

America's astronauts have been consuming irradiated foods from the beginning of the space program - and so have us earth-dwellers - all of us - just with the spices you carefully sprinkle onto your foods nearly everyday of the year.

NASA's CCP to their Space HACCP is a no look, slam dunk RTE kill step.

Irradiated food was consumed by the Apollo astronauts on the moon and on the joint American-Soviet Apollo-Soyuz space flights.

American astronauts continue to consume irradiated beef, pork, smoked turkey and corned beef aboard the space shuttle flights through NASA's pending Artemis program of 2022.

The FDA long ago authorized the use of irradiation to sterilize hospital equipment, disposable medical devices and other medical supplies - including too - the use of x-rays and gamma rays to inspect food, and the use of ultraviolet radiation to control the growth of surface microorganisms and to sterilize water used in food production.?

As NASA space programs morphed from Mercury flights - so too did Space HACCP evolve - including the QA / QC cornucopia of available foods for todays and tomorrows Space Sailing Homo sapiens.

Fallen NASA Astronauts in the likes of Christa McAuliffe and other heroines / heroes of yesterday's "Womened" / Manned Space Sailor Programs," whose innate fate dared them to rocket towards all those billions upon billions of suns spiraling away from us 24/7/365 - was not too unlike the fate of Icarus.

The NASA space programs collective deaths shall always stand as a monument and a reminder of their sheer courage to discovering and further understanding the unknown reaches of outer space.

Since the inception of the NASA astronaut program in 1959, a total of?18 astronauts?have tragically died while on NASA missions or training.

"HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM ..."

Apollo 13 was NASA 's third moon-landing mission, but the astronauts never made it to the lunar surface. During the mission's dramatic series of events, an?oxygen tank explosion?almost 56 hours into the flight forced the crew to abandon all thoughts of reaching the moon.

At the time they were 200,000 miles away from mother earth.

QUESTION

Whom do the history books credit for developing HACCP that is used world-wide in 2022?

And whom is credited with creating the 1st solid food consumed by a Pioneering NASA astronaut?

ANSWER

Dr. Howard Bauman among many other feats and certainly too - his many talented and clever assistants.?

Hey!?

HACCP isn't a rocket science to understand its inherent preventive attributes. But to "think tank" outside the box - originally from scratch was truly aplomb.

QUESTION

Whom do the history books credit for developing the concepts of HACCP that is used world-wide in 2022?

And whom is credited with creating the 1st solid food consumed by a Pioneering NASA astronaut?

Dr. Bauman is your answer as he spent 36 years at the Pillsbury Company in Minneapolis, starting in 1953 when Harry Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower were transitioning as Presidents.?

Dr. Bauman was born in Woodworth, Wis. He graduated from the University of Wisconsin in 1949 and received a Ph.D. in microbiology in 1953, just when Pillsbury was looking for people like him to expand its line of RTE foods, which were easily spoiled by bacteria.

Dr. Bauman began as head of research in the company's bacteria section. He rose to Director of Corporate Research in the 1960s and retired as VP for Science and Regulatory Affairs in 1989.

The name HACCP system was formed back in 1970, and it has since gained broad acceptance - both in Mega USDA / FDA - and abroad - while becoming an integral part of today's federal food regulatory systems.?

Ever evolving HACCP was tested / revised in the early 1970's when the USDA asked Dr. Bauman for a system for insuring safety in canning vegetables with GMO's.

Dr. Bauman's team at Pillsbury held a training course for the canning industry in 1973. Two (2) years later the FDA wrote regulations requiring the canners to put Dr. Bauman's system in place.

The "Food System" was much in the public eye in the 1990s during a rash of food recalls for pathogenic contamination, involving millions of pounds of hot dogs, luncheon meat, snacks and of course the Jack-N-The-Box incident involving that gram negative culprit E. coli?O157:H7.

Nearly all Americans at the time watched the moon?landing?in 1969 when Richard Nixon was President and Vietnam was still a killing field.

POINT OF REFERENCE - the Beatles smoothed it out a bit with?"Here Comes the Sun," "Come Together,"?and "Something" in 1969.

It's been slightly over a half century since Jul. 20,1969 when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin ambulated and hopped like kangaroos on the moon during the Apollo 11 mission.?

According to NASA and Honeywell documents - 650 million people watched on television as Neil Armstrong took his historic first step upon the surface of the moon.?

When Homo sapiens were still spelunkers - way before the discovery of fire - they too gazed up on clear chilly nights and wondered what the different stages of the harvest moon was all about.

They Rembrandt what they observed on their rock- to - rock cave walls, ceilings and boulders .

I recently read that approximately 129 million Americans alive today should be able to claim that they saw the Apollo 11 landing - and if fate be good - shall watch America return to the moon that is scheduled for 2024 - via NASA's sublime Artemis space program.

Artemis is the Greek Goddess of the hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, the Moon, and chastity.

She is the daughter of Zeus and Leto, and the twin sister of Apollo. Much like Athena and Hesti, Artemis preferred to remain a maiden and is sworn never to marry. Artemis' symbols included a bow and arrow, a quiver and hunting knives.?

And - America shall have another first that I'd be willing to bet on if the late Vegas Odds maker Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder was still alive today and was betting against it.

A Homo sapient of the female gender shall moon-dance on the lunar surface in 2024.?

Which more than likely shall inspire others, most not yet born, to accomplish from 2024 and beyond.?

That lucky astronaut shall have her name highlighted in newspapers, a well-spring of magazines, and school books of the future - and may even be an exam question like Sally Ride (May 26, 1951 - Jul. 23,?2012?- 61 years old) and others are today.

Fly me to the moon

Let me play among the stars

And let me see what spring is like

On Jupiter and Mars - - -

EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA

History clearly evinces that great feats by women and men are more times than naught on the shoulders of others before them - in many cases - such connections can extend for centuries as clearly depicted below.

#Eratosthenes ?- Greece - 276 - 195 BC

Eratosthenes is best known for being the first person known to calculate the?circumference of the Earth which he did by using the extensive survey results he could access in his role at the Library - his calculation was remarkably accurate.?

Eratosthenes was also the first to calculate?Earth's axial tilt.?He created the?first global projection?of the world, incorporating?parallels?and?meridians?based on the available geographic knowledge of his era.

#Claudius ?Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy) - 120 -189 AD - Egypt - (When Egypt was still under the Fist and Mighty Sword of the Roman Empire)

Claudius Ptolemaeus Ptolemy was an?astronomer, mathematician and geographer in the second century AD.?

#Nicolaus ?Copernicus - Poland - 1473 -1543 AD

Copernicus was a?Renaissance?polymath, active as a mathematician, astronomer, and?Catholic?canon who formulated a?model?of?the universe?that placed?the Sun rather than Earth?at its center.

In all likelihood, Copernicus developed his model independently of Aristarchus of Samos, an ancient Greek astronomer who had formulated such a model some eighteen (18) centuries earlier!

#Tycho ?Brahe - Danish / Norway - 1546 - 1601 AD

Tycho Brahe was well known in his lifetime as an astronomer,?astrologer, and?alchemist. He has been described as "the first competent mind in modern astronomy to feel ardently the passion for exact?empirical facts."

#Johannes ?Kepler - German - 1571 - 1630 AD

Kepler was a key figure in the 17th-century?Scientific Revolution, best known for his?laws of planetary motion, and his books?Astronomia nova,?Harmonice Mundi, and?Epitome Astronomiae Copernicanae.

These works also provided one of the foundations for?Newton's theory of?universal gravitation.

#Galielo ?Galilei - Italian - 1564 - 1642 AD

What a truly clever, wise and steadfast / dogmatic man Galielo Galilei proved to be.?

Galielo studied?speed?and?velocity,?gravity?and?free fall, the?principle of relativity,?inertia,?projectile motion?and also worked in applied science and technology, describing the properties of?pendulums?and *"hydrostatic?balances," (*a balance for weighing a substance in water to ascertain its specific gravity.)

Galielo invented the?*thermoscope (*an instrument for indicating changes of temperature by accompanying changes in volume as of a gas) and various?military compasses, and used the?telescope?for scientific observations of celestial objects.

Galileo's championing of Copernican *heliocentrism (*earth rotating daily and revolving around the Sun) was met with opposition from within the Catholic Church and from selected astronomers.

The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that heliocentrism was foolish, absurd, and heretical since it contradicted Holy Scripture.

Galileo was found guilty by the inquisition in Rome for defending the Copernican theory of heliocentrism, after it had been declared contrary to Holy Scripture.?

At the time of his death, Galileo had been under house arrest for eight (8) years as a result of having held to the opinion that the sun remains motionless and that the earth revolves around it.

His death was caused by a seasoned heart that simply ran out of beats.

#Sir ?Isaac Newton - England - 1643 - 1727 AD

In the?Principia, Newton formulated the?laws of motion?and?universal gravitation?that formed the dominant scientific viewpoint for centuries until it was superseded by you know whose -?Theory of Relativity.

Newton demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and celestial bodies could be accounted for by the same principles. Newton's inference that the Earth is but an oblate spheroid was later confirmed by the geodetic measurements of Maupertuis, La Condamine, and others, convincing most European scientists of the superiority of Newtonian mechanics over earlier systems.

#Sir ?Edmond Halley - England - 1656 - 1742 AD

From an observatory Edmond Halley constructed on?Saint Helena?in 1676–77, Halley catalogued the?southern celestial hemisphere?and recorded a?transit of Mercury?across the Sun.

Halley realized that a similar?transit of Venus?could be used to determine the distances between Earth, Venus, and the Sun.?

Upon his return to England, he was made a?fellow of the Royal Society, and with the help of King?Charles II, was granted a master's degree from?Oxford.

Halley encouraged and helped fund the publication of Sir?Isaac Newton's influential?Philosophi? Naturalis Principia Mathematica?(1687).

From observations Halley made in Sept. 1682, he used?Newton's laws of motion?to compute the periodicity of?Halley's Comet?in his 1705?Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets.

Based on his research and calculations, Halley predicted that the comet would return in 1758. Unfortunately, he died in 1742 and was unable to see if his prediction would come true.?

On the Christmas evening of Dec. 25, 1758, a German farmer and amateur astronomer Johann Georg Palitzsch witnessed the comet’s return - just as Halley had predicted.

This marked the first time that any object other than a planet had been shown to orbit the sun.

It was also one of the first successful confirmations of Newtonian physics. The following year, the comet was named in Halley’s honor.

#Sir ?Willam Herschel - German-born British 1738 - 1822

Herschel built his first large telescope in 1774, after which he spent nine (9) years carrying out sky surveys to investigate double stars - known today as binary stars.?

Herschel published catalogues of?nebulae?in 1802 (2,500 objects) and in 1820 (5,000 objects). The resolving power of the Herschel telescopes revealed that many objects called nebulae in the?Messier catalogue?were actually clusters of stars.?

On Mar. 13, 1781 while making observations he made note of a new object in the constellation of Gemini. This would, after several weeks of verification and consultation with other astronomers, be confirmed to be a new planet, eventually given the name of?Uranus.?

Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. Its name is a reference to the Greek God of the sky, Uranus (Caelus), who, according to Greek mythology, was the great-grandfather of Ares (Mars), grandfather of Zeus (Jupiter) and father of Cronus (Saturn).

Uranus has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System. This was the first planet to be discovered since antiquity, and Herschel became a Superstar himself overnight.?

#Sir ?John Herschel - England - 1792 - 1871

Sir John Herschel was an English?polymath?active as a?mathematician,?astronomer,?chemist, inventor, experimental photographer who invented the?blueprint and did?botanical?work.

Herschel originated the use of the?Julian day?system in?astronomy. He named seven?moons of Saturn?and four?moons of Uranus?– the seventh planet, discovered by his father?Sir William Herschel.

Herschel made many contributions to the science of photography, and investigated?colour blindness?and the chemical power of?ultraviolet?rays.?

#Edwin ?Hubble - American - 1889 - 1953?

Edwin Hubble was an?American?astronomer. He played a crucial role in establishing the fields of?extragalactic astronomy?and?observational cosmology.

Hubble proved that many objects previously thought to be clouds of dust and gas and classified as "nebulae" were actually?galaxies?beyond our?Milky Way.?

He used the strong direct?relationship?between a classical?Cepheid variable's?luminosity?and?pulsation period?(discovered in 1908 by?Henrietta Swan Leavitt) for scaling?galactic and extragalactic distances.

Hubble provided evidence that the?recessional velocity?of a galaxy increases with its distance from the Earth, a property now known as "Hubble's Law," although it had been proposed two years earlier by?Georges Lemaitre.?

The Hubble law implies that the universe is expanding - not too unlike blowing up a red ballon for birthdays.?

A decade before, the American astronomer?Vesto Slipher?had provided the first evidence that the light from many of these nebulae was strongly red-shifted, indicative of high recession velocities.

"The universe is unfolding - as it should."

- Edwin Hubble

And so are Homo sapiens still unfolding, like a flower surely does every spring morning, by exploring, questioning and contemplating everything under, over and beyond our sun - as was intended.

God, faster than a mere blink of an Homo sapiens evolved eye, loaned Homo sapiens spoonfuls of imagination and awareness - when other mammals only gargled.

There remains in 2022 limitless treasures in the ever expanding universe - just waiting in complete darkness and silence to be unveiled by the many enviable Jolly Roger Space Sailors of today - and tomorrow.

Our myriad opportunities in 2022 is that our collective and ever evolving cognitive, imagination and perception skills - are in reality - still in their early infancies - in the grand scheme of things.

So, enjoy the ride.

Sittin' in the stand of the sports arena

Waiting for the show to begin

Red lights, green lights, strawberry wine

A good friend of mine - follows the stars

Venus and Mars are all-right tonight ... .

Sir Paul McCartney and Wings - Released on May 27, 1975

Currently, Steve Sayer is a workplace safety consultant to OSHA, EPA, GFSI, USDA and FDA, and a technical writer for multiple industries, as well as a part-time maintenance worker for California State Beaches.