Space Use
Apollo 7 in 1968 was the first and only NASA mission on which freeze-dried ice cream flew in space. It was developed by U.S. Army Natick Laboratories, consisting of "coconut fat, milk solids, and sugar. The ice cream was homogenized, frozen, then freeze-dried, ground and compressed into cubes under high pressure. The cubes were then coated with an edible gelatin coating to prevent crumbs". This was the ice cream flown on Apollo 7, which can differ from modern space ice cream. It was found to be impractical for space flight because of the tendency to crumble and create crumbs which can be dangerous to humans and equipment in a microgravity environment. Despite the modern images of space walking astronauts in shuttle era space suits, freeze dried ice cream was not included on any subsequent Apollo, Skylab, shuttle or International Space Station missions. According to one NASA food scientist, although freeze-dried ice cream was developed on request, "it wasn't that popular."
Read more about this topic: Freeze-dried Ice Cream
Famous quotes containing the word space:
“This moment exhibits infinite space, but there is a space also wherein all moments are infinitely exhibited, and the everlasting duration of infinite space is another region and room of joys.”
—Thomas Traherne (1636–1674)
“When Paul Bunyan’s loggers roofed an Oregon bunkhouse with shakes, fog was so thick that they shingled forty feet into space before discovering they had passed the last rafter.”
—State of Oregon, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)