A Testament to Their Fortitude
Rebecca Marino
Meal 1B Cereal-Lucky Charms
Food evaluations are conducted approximately eight to nine months before the flight. During the food evaluation sessions, the 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. Astronauts will choose 28 day flight menus approximately 120 days prelaunch. Additions, deletions, or substitutions to a standard Space Station menu will be made using a Space Station food list.
The packaging system for the Daily Menu food is based on single service, disposable containers. Food items will be packaged as individual servings to facilitate inflight changes and substitutions to preselected menus. Single service containers also eliminates the need for a dishwasher. A modular concept that maintains a constant width dimension is utilized in the package design.
Excerpted from http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/shuttle/reference/factsheets/food.html
Rebecca Marino is an Austin-based visual artist whose work focuses on cosmic perspective. For the past three years she has acted as co-director and curator for pump project and is co-editor and co-founder of Conflict of Interest.