Women and moon exploration
During the Artemis II mission, Christina Koch became the first woman to travel to the moon. Before Artemis, she was a flight engineer on the International Space Station for Expedition 59, 60 and 61 back in 2019. During her time on the space station, Koch participated in the first all-female spacewalk. She has spent 338 days in space across during her time as a NASA astronaut.
Koch’s role in the Artemis II mission follows in the footsteps of other women in space exploration firsts like Eileen Collins.
Collins was the first woman to pilot a Space Shuttle and then became the female commander of a Space Shuttle mission. Her story is chronicled in her memoir, Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars.
Speaking as the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle and command the spacecraft during a later Space Shuttle mission, Collins said that she congratulates Christina Koch and is “really proud of her. She has done great for the reputation of women.”
But now that decades have passed since women weren’t allowed at NASA, Collins said women at NASA now most likely just want to be viewed as part of the mission or the crew rather than to stand out.
“I think, from Christina's point of view and probably the other women in the astronaut office, they're like ‘yeah, hey, we're just part of the mission,”’ Collins said. “We don't really want to stand out as, ‘Oh, you're so different because you're a woman.’ I think we just want to be good contributing crew members.
Collins said that she expects NASA to announce the crews of Artemis III and IV any day now. When its announced, Collins said the biggest advice she can pass along to the first female who will walk on the moon is to remember to be modest.
“It is so important as a human being to maintain your humility,” Collins said. “I actually pray for humility. I just want to be a normal person…there'll be a huge demand on your time for speaking for, writing your memoirs, for maybe making a film about your life like I ended up doing.”
As far as who that woman will be that walks on the moon, Collins said that woman’s life will be forever changed.
“I'm not sure how NASA is going to do the selection process, but I'm really looking forward to seeing who that's going to be,” Collins said. “It probably won't be Christina. I'm sure she would love to go back and walk on the moon, but I think they're probably going to try to spread the wealth a little bit, and Christina is going to be very busy doing all of her post flight work.”
Fine dining in space
One professor at the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management is taking fine dining to space by experimenting with microgravity-friendly dishes.
The college is studying tofu formation in microgravity and producing delicious dishes to send beyond our planet. This includes the fan favorite sticky rice pudding with freeze dried mangos, according to Cesar Rivera Cruzado, Director of Food and Beverage Operations at Rosen College.
Food on Earth is more than subsistence. Cruzado wants to bring that same dining experience to each space voyager.
"I see [space food] from a hedonistic perspective,” Cruzado said. “We want to enjoy the food. Food scientists are really good taking care of the nutrition and the nutrients in the food, right? They know about that, but in our case, our expertise and what we can bring is the enjoyable part.”
Rosen College is exploring what Cruzado called “closed loop food systems” -- or producing food from seed to stomach entirely in space. This will help mitigate the costs associated with transport of food from Earth.
High cost is not the only barrier to fine dining beyond Earth’s atmosphere. Reduced gravity sends crumbs flying, potentially damaging flight systems or injuring astronauts. Traditional methods of preparing food are also off the table -- literally -- in space.
“There’s a lot of challenges and space, especially for us as culinarians,” Cruzado said. “For us as a chef, it's like chopping onions. For me, it's something so simple, you can chop onions and the onions will stay on the cutting board. In the case of space, everything will float.”
Cruzado said it’s been very rewarding watching the students learn about space cuisine alongside him.
“We’ve just given the students the opportunity to see and experiment how food could be produced in space with different angles, not just only tailor for astronauts and scientists that will be in the space flying, but also for tourists and the layman, the regular people that are going to space and work in space,” Cruzado said.
