Heston's Dinner in Space Review

Heston's Dinner in Space Review

Science Chef, Heston Blumenthal, has been challenge to create space food, which astronaut look forward to eat and enjoy. Space food is primary eaten for astronauts to get all the vitamins and energy they need to existence, not really made for their taste value. His meals will be for British Astronaut, Tim Peake, becoming Tim's bonus meals - which are a low supply of better tasting food, compared to the normal supply of normal space food. He was given 21 months for this task. The ESA (European Space Agency) gave him the task, but all the food had to follow all the rules of space food; no crumbs, no alcohol, all plates and eating utensils have to be thick and not flimsy, must last at least 18 months, have to be low in salt and have to pass the NASA bacteria test. All the food sent into space has to be in either; a can, gas-tight pouch or a dehydrated vacuum bag. To eat ideas, Heston met up with Tim in the New York Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Heston got to know what sort of flavours Tim liked and dislikes. Tim also took Heston in the forests so Heston could try some army ration packs, to get to know what sort of food Tim Peake got to eat while he was in the Army, he was a test pilot.

Heston's ideas from his army rations experience were; Salmon with Capers and Dressings, which is inspired by Operation Raleigh, a Alaskan operation Tim was on, as well as British Sausage and Onion, which Tim really enjoyed from his army days. Then Heston had to experience what it's like for Astronauts trying to eat, he was strapped into a bed which rotated over so that Heston was standing upside down. He needed to do this because when Astronauts are in zero gravity all the blood floats up to the upper half of your body, bulging into you head and neck, causing your nostrils to close slightly, causing symptoms of having a cold and headache. Heston tried spicy food, starting with wasabi, saying it didn't taste spicy, this is because your nostrils are blocked so the smell doesn't rush into your nostrils. While chili, turns extremely spicy as the spices hit your roof of your mouth, causing you to sense the spice more.

Knowing what he has learnt from his zero-gravity test, Heston calls Tim back to his restaurant for a 3 hour Umami taste test. Umami is from the Japanese, meaning "delicious savory taste", found a lot in tomatoes. Also knowing that fat in meat, breaks down making a it not taste very nice if it is cooked in a pressure cooker. So Heston uses a Larding Needle to thread strings of beef tendon through his beef loin. The beef comes with potato, onion, truffle and seaweed which is packed with umami. After that, Heston sends off the Salmon, Beef and Sausage meals off to a pressure cooking company which primes food for space travel.

With 8 months to the launch, the space food company email back saying the pouches, which the food is serviced in, needs more testing which Heston wants to make his meals from. Going on to say, to use cans instead. Heston to West Brittany, to a  pâté company to test his meals in canned form; finding out that the onions they cooked in the sausage meal are too liquidy for space. But Heston comes up with a rule, which breaks one of NASA's rules of space food but will solve his problem, using bread to soak up the liquid. Heston finds out that cutting the crusts off the bread will make next to next zero crumbs and will as solve his onion juice problem. From this, Heston believes his can create a bacon sandwich for Tim Peake to eat in space, but cutting the crusts off and canning the sandwich, Tim will be able to enjoy a bacon sandwich in space. Heston and his team say the sandwiches tasted really nice, but not the same as Earth bacon sandwiches, but will do for the astronauts as a treat. When back in England, Heston uses a liquid analyzer to try different species and different amounts of onion to reduce the onion juice even more.

Heston also creates some thick paper eating board for Tim, Origami salmon for the fish dish, dinning table for the beef and a paper campfire for the sausage meal. Next Heston comes up with the idea of drinking tea in zero gravity, out of a real cup. But of course, you can't really have liquids in space, all the drinks are made in plastic drink pouches. But American astronaut, Don Pettit, has invented a drinking cup for zero gravity, showing it off via link-up video, drinking a cup of espresso in space. Heston brings a 3D printed zero-gravity cup on a zero-gravity plane, nicknamed the Vomit Comet. The plane rapidly climbs, then dives to simulate 30 seconds of zero gravity, as the plane free falls at the same rate as everything inside it. Heston tests eating and drinking in zero gravity, with the cup working perfect, saying you really have to suck the liquid out of as the liquid almost sicks to the inside of the cup.

After all the testing has been completed, everything is loaded on Vulcan 9 - a delivery ship for the ISS (International Space Station), costing NASA hundreds of millions of pounds to build and use the rocket. As the rocket begins to travel at 1 km a second, the rocket bursts into flames, and explodes. All the time and money Heston and NASA have spent have just gone. Nearly a month later, Heston is able to try again using a Russian supply ship to the ISS, but is forced to leave the tea and zero-gravity cups behind as they were the only thing which didn't pass Russian space food laws. The rockets goes up to meet the ISS, making a safe journey. Later that year, Tim Peake became the first British Man to enter the ISS on December 15th, 2015.

5 days later, Heston was sent an email from Tim Peake, on the ISS, saying that all the food is really, really good, with the bacon sandwich being incredible. Going on to say, the curry was not very spicy, saying that the smells couldn't reach his nostril hair as of the atmospheric pressure on the station, but still tasted with great. Later on in the year, Heston was given the ability to speak with Tim via a link-up video, so they could eat from of the space food and talk about it. Heston was only given 20 minutes link-up time, but was able to get through 2 of the meals he prepared for Tim: Sausage Sizzle and Beef Stew. The sausage smelled fantastic and tasted delicious, saying the onions hit the nail on the head, absolutely brilliant to have a campfire dinning board. Next was the beef stew, Tim disappeared of view of the camera for a minute to slip on a tuxedo t-shirt, so the meal would feel more gourmet. Tim said the beef tasted fantastic and the world meal was wonderful. But his favourite was the salmon, saying that the capers gave the meal such a kick to the fish.

Heston walked away from the experience feeling quite pleased with himself, saying he felt that he made such an absolute huge difference, saying he had made the best space food.

Overall: Incredible science that goes into make space food. 9/10.

Final thought: "Just watching the astronauts let the food float and eating the it without touch it..."