Every NASA astronaut, including Alan S Hepard in 1961, was given a hearty breakfast before blast-off. All the pre-flight Apollo meals had been mainly prepared for nutrients and energy and – crucially – have been what docs check with as “low residue”. In other phrases, low-fiber meals wouldn’t have astronauts desiring the toilet too quickly after carry-off.
Early missions also confined coffee consumption before launch because of its diuretic residences. Shepard’s Mercury flight, for instance, was simplest 15 minutes, so docs figured he could avoid urinating until splashdown. Unfortunately, they no longer account for countdown delays.
“They positioned Alan Shepard on the pinnacle of his rocket without a manner to take a leak,” says reporter Jay Barbree, who was commentating on the mission for US TV channel NBC. “After hours, he begins complaining and desperately asks for permission to moist his health – ultimately, they gave him permission.” The astronaut is relieved, but the clinical sensors move loopy.
Astronauts flying in the Apollo spacecraft used non-public urine series devices – like condoms – related to a disposal device, which ejected the waste from a port at the facet of the spaceship.
The solid waste involved plastic baggage, and most astronauts tried to avoid going to the restroom for as long as possible. The first to crack all through Apollo 7 changed into Walt Cunningham.
“It became difficult to get the entire working just proper,” he tells me. “You can catch the whole thing, however, after which you had to get a few capsules loose from inside the bag, and you spend it slow blending the drugs up with something you had there – it turned into no longer extraordinarily amusing.”2,800: Daily calorie intake
The first American to eat a meal in space was John Glenn. During his five-hour flight, he tested a bit like a toothpaste tube of apple puree, proving that humans should swallow and digest meals in weightlessness.
For the two-guy Gemini missions of the mid-Nineteen Sixties, astronauts were allocated 2,500 energy an afternoon and fed on plastic packs of freeze-dried foods produced by the Whirlpool Corporation (the house equipment employer). Freeze-drying involved cooking the meals, quickly freezing them, and then slowly warming them in a vacuum chamber to cast off the ice crystals fashioned using the freezing method.
The astronauts squirted water through a nozzle to rehydrate the ingredients and kneaded the ensuing paste into a gloop. The food was tastier than the tube meals on Mercury and protected delights like red meat and gravy, but the water became cold, making them often less than appetizing.
During the first Gemini task – Gemini 3 in 1965 – John Young created a minor scandal and the handiest blemish on his exemplary astronaut profession by smuggling a corned red meat sandwich. What started as a funny story threatened to cause extreme trouble with the spacecraft, with fears that crumbs could intrude with the circuitry.
During the Apollo missions – while the astronauts may have wanted to do some confined exercising within the pill and were exerting themselves on the Moon – NASA nutritionists upped the calorie intake to two 800.
The meals were tastier, and the water gun – furnished from the spacecraft fuel cells – ran hot and cold. And the food didn’t handiest must be sucked thru a straw; the astronauts ought to even eat a number of them with a spoon.
6: Packs of pineapple fruit cake
The pantry of the Apollo spacecraft was jammed with snacks. Along with six portions of pineapple fruit cake, there were packs of muffins, chocolate cake, and sweet jellied fruit. There were cheese crackers and BBQ red meat bites for the savory palate. Apollo astronauts were allotted 15 packs of chewing gum containing four sticks.
A normal dinner during Apollo 17 consisted of a prime of chook and rice, followed by butterscotch pudding and ‘Graham Cracker cubes’. They could wash this all down with instantaneous coffee, tea, cocoa, or lemonade.
