dcn@ihuxl.UUCP (Dave Newkirk) (03/20/86)
Nothing gave the workshop developers more trouble than the human digestive tract - and the experimenters whose main concerns were with what went into and what came out of it. Food management and waste management would have been complicated enough as independent systems, but the imposition of stringent medical requirements made things much worse. The waste management system produced major design problems down to a few months before launch; the food system was brought under control by the end of 1971. ... The first three manned Apollo flights in 1968 and 1969 brought complaints about the food. This was somewhat surprising, because the food was much the same as in Gemini, and some of the same astronauts had found it quite acceptable. Seeking an outside opinion, MSC nutritionists persuaded Donald D. Arabian, chief of MSC's Test Division, to evaluate Apollo rations. Although he admitted to being `something of a human garbage can,' Arabian found the experience one he did not care for. He had agreed to subsist on Apollo food for four days, but the prospect quickly became unappealing. The sausage patties in his first breakfast resembled `coarse granulated rubber with a sausage flavor,' which left a sickening aftertaste that persisted for an hour. At the end of the first day, Arabian noted a marked loss of appetite; by the third day, eating was a real chore. Meal preparation offered no pleasant anticipation; there were no aromas to stimulate the appetite and no textural variety to provide satisfaction. Those items that most closely resembled off-the-shelf foods were excellent, but those prepared especially for spaceflight could only be called bad. Arabian could not understand why such common items as peanuts and chocolate had to be ground up and converted into bite-size cubes, which stuck to the teeth. (Excerpt from "Living and Working in Space - A History of Skylab", NASA SP-4208, for sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Gov't Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402) -- Dave Newkirk, ihnp4!ihuxl!dcn