At a time when India debates manned missions to space, Defence Food Research Laboratory (DFRL), Mysore has already fed the Indian and NASA astronauts. Space foods differ from the regular earthly food in their nutritional profile. To meet the physiological and nutritional requirements in space, DFRL has designed Space Foods with decreased fat and increased protein, less fiber, protein content similar to earthly diets, calories 2800-3600KCals/day, 1.9 kg food / day / person and protein 16-17%, Fat 30-32%, Carbohydrate 50-54% to be precise.

Space Food Eating procedure	Space fluids drinking procedure

Dr.K.Radhakrishna who worked on Space Foods from DFRL says “Providing nutritious, palatable, stable and safe foods in a convenient form and in adequate quantity for the crew and mission specialists of any multimillion dollar space mission is an exacting task. We had to identify the foods which were most likely to be acceptable, choose the processing technology that is most appropriate to preserving its food value, eliminate totally any microbial hazard if any, resulting from their consumption within their shelf life. We also had to ensure that they can withstand the vagaries of the climate and storage conditions and ascertain above all that at the end of receiving due considerations on the above mentioned points, these foods are finally palatable, acceptable and satisfying.”

DFRL got its first taste of Space Food R&D during the Indo Soviet Space Mission. Say’s Dr. Radhakrishna “DFRL’s pioneering experience was during the Indo-Soviet Mission of 1984. Food products of Indian origin were made available to Squadron Leader Rakhesh Sharma , our products were confined to the peripheral options as when compared to the variety provided by the Soviet Space Food experts. As it was a first experience for India, as well as DFRL, many significant strides were made in inventing art and science of Space Food provisioning. In 1986 our inputs were sought again for the STS/INSAT IC payload specialist mission. The mission required Indian foods to be used in NASA’s Space shuttle Challenger in September 1986. Laboratory analysis of Chemical, Microbiological and Nutrition profiles are part of basic R&D to any product. For Space Foods special “risk assessment” studies were also done. The R&D data from DFRL matched exactly with that of NASA’s labs half way across the globe. This is a mark of excellence in work from both labs. ”

Dr. A S Bawa	Dr.K.Radhakrishna

Dr. A S Bawa who is the current Director of DFRL say’s “the mission food products developed by DFRL and were Indian Indigenous food; however it was well received by the payload scientists. The foods were developed along the quality criteria’s namely Light weight, low volume, quick preparation, easy to consume, low fragmentation, high acceptability, wholesomeness, nutrient adequacy, stability, variety, gastro-intestinal compatibility and minimum residue packaging. Most foods were either freeze dried Intermediate Moisture Food (IMF) or Ready to Eat (RTE). A full meal for 4 took 5 minutes to re-hydrate. Reconstituting & heating took 20 min. Freeze dried foods had the advantage of being reconstituted in either hot or cold water. The logistics were to have Space foods which similar to “Food at home”. Out of the DFRL Space Food basket NASA chose 13 products which included fruit juices, chapattis, chicken biriani etc for their missions. Every experiment of our research in the project exactly matched the parallel experiments conducted by NASA half way across the globe.”

Space Food preparation at DFRL

Dr Radhakrishna say’s ” successful development of Space Foods of Indian dietary had been an opportunity for DFRL to demonstrate the capabilities on par with Russian and American foods in terms of health and well being of astronauts. We found that since water is a usable by product from fuel cells freeze dried foods are more ideal and can save much weight. The packaging forms the vital design consideration of any food system, for space foods they have to endure high ‘g’ and zero ‘g’. Further they should facilitate easy re-constitution, easy dispensing and withstand high vibration. At DFRL we have developed double compartmental rehydratable polypropylene cups.

Indian foods present a variety. They are easy to prepare, acceptable and fits well alongside western foods. The payload scientists who were part of the trails felt that pickles & yogurt based items ought to be included. Our foods prepared met the microbiological standards required for the flight qualifications. We had a food familiarization programme established as part of training to payload scientists in space mission.”

Prof. A.S.Bawa, Director, DFRL says “We have a lot of vertical vision for future ideas and developments in space food. Irradiation processed foods have been found to be popular with astronauts as they have advantages of being storable under ambient conditions, giving extended life and eliminates potential pathogens. Further this is a new technology which has high acceptability and has been proved to be very safe. In extended missions heavy reliance on advanced life support to grow foods and replenish oxygen has been thought of. This will require a closed loop system to recycle carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and water. A number of plants are under consideration as food crops because of their high edible biomass yield, dietary variety, being nutritionally complete and dependable yield. Experiments are on at Kennedy Space centre for growing wheat in an environmental chamber to optimize the growing conditions as would be necessary on a Lunar or Martian settlement.

Another interesting area is Biotechnological approach to provide appetizing fresh foods example meat from muscle cell lines. Artificial ecosystem to grow fish from water snails, plants and microbes only light is needed for the growth of fish and rootless aquatic plants. German Scientists are working in these areas.”

Space Food Packaged

Icing on the DFRL cake is that, today, most logistics and technologies developed by DFRL continue to form the framework for the formulation of space foods for the international space projects.