Salt shakers are a 'disaster' in space - here's how astronauts zest up their food
We may think of astronauts as robust, all-powerful supermen who can survive in the most severe conditions - even living in a tin can in the vast vacuum of space.
But they're human. And they need to eat. And ideally, their food should taste good.
Seasoning in space presents myriad challenges, though, when you're floating around in near-zero-gravity conditions. If you sprinkle some salt and pepper, it will just float away, potentially clogging air vents, contaminating their fancy equipment, or even getting painfully lodged in someone's eyeball.
To prevent this, astronauts use liquid salt and pepper, NASA astronaut Scott Kelly revealed Jan. 23 in a Reddit AMA (ask me anything).
If a powder were to escape in the interior of the ISS, Kelly said, they would need to "consider shutting down the ventilation to stop it from spreading."
Astronauts eat three square meals per day, just like we do on Earth, including "fruits, nuts, peanut butter, chicken, beef, seafood, candy, and brownies," according to NASA. They also drink coffee, tea, fruit juices, and lemonade.
But eating from the same bucket of freeze-dried and preserved food for weeks, months, and even years (in Kelly's case) gets old after a while.
When asked what he'd do the minute he was back on Earth, he said:
"The first thing I will eat will probably be a piece of fruit (or a cucumber) the Russian nurse hands me as soon as I am pulled out of the space capsule and begin initial health checks."
Us too, Scott Kelly. Us too.