Engineering topics
Perchonok, Michele H.
Publications and source records attributed to Perchonok, Michele H..
Non-Microgravity Provocations to Crew - Food
This slide presentation reviews the importance of food for long term space exploration missions. The Goals and objectives of the NASA food system is to develop a food system that is safe, nutritious, acceptable and efficiently balances appropriate vehicle resources: volume, mass, waste, water, power, cooling, air, and crew time. The importance of not only the nutrition, but the socialization of meals is also discussed.
Comparative Packaging Study
Future long duration manned space flights beyond low earth orbit will require the food system to remain safe, acceptable and nutritious. Development of high barrier food packaging will enable this requirement by preventing the ingress and egress of gases and moisture. New high barrier food packaging materials have been identified through a trade study. Practical application of this packaging material within a shelf life test will allow for better determination of whether this material will allow the food system to meet given requirements after the package has undergone processing. The reason to conduct shelf life testing, using a variety of packaging materials, stems from the need to preserve food used for mission durations of several years. Chemical reactions that take place during longer durations may decrease food quality to a point where crew physical or psychological well-being is compromised. This can result in a reduction or loss of mission success. The rate of chemical reactions, including oxidative rancidity and staling, can be controlled by limiting the reactants, reducing the amount of energy available to drive the reaction, and minimizing the amount of water available. Water not only acts as a media for microbial growth, but also as a reactant and means by which two reactants may come into contact with each other. The objective of this study is to evaluate three packaging materials for potential use in long duration space exploration missions.
Effect of Processing and Subsequent Storage on Nutrition
This viewgraph presentation includes the following objectives: 1) To determine the effects of thermal processing, freeze drying, irradiation, and storage time on the nutritional content of food; 2) To evaluate the nutritional content of the food items currently used on the International Space Station and Shuttle; and 3) To determine if there is a need to institute countermeasures. (This study does not seek to address the effect of processing on nutrients in detail, but rather aims to place in context the overall nutritional status at the time of consumption).
Food Mass Reduction Trade Study
Future long duration manned space flights beyond low earth orbit will require the food system to remain safe, acceptable, and nutritious while efficiently balancing appropriate vehicle resources such as mass, volume, power, water, and crewtime. Often, this presents a challenge since maintaining the quality of the food system can result in a higher mass and volume. The Orion vehicle is significantly smaller than the Shuttle vehicle and the International Space Station and the mass and volume available for food is limited. Therefore, the food team has been challenged to reduce the mass of the packaged food from 1.82 kg per person per day to 1.14 kg per person per day. Past work has concentrated on how to reduce the mass of the packaging which contributes to about 15% of the total mass of the packaged food system. Designers have also focused on integrating and optimizing the Orion galley equipment as a system to reduce mass. To date, there has not been a significant effort to determine how to reduce the food itself. The objective of this project is to determine how the mass and volume of the packaged food can be reduced while maintaining caloric and hydration requirements. The following tasks are the key elements to this project: (1) Conduct further analysis of the ISS Standard Menu to determine moisture, protein, carbohydrate, and fat levels. (2) Conduct trade studies to determine how to bring the mass of the food system down. Trade studies may include removing the water of the total food system and/or increasing the fat content. (3) Determine the preferred method for delivery of the new food (e.g. bars, or beverages) and the degree of replacement. (4) Determine whether there are commercially available products that meet the requirements. By the end of this study, an estimate of the mass and volume savings will be provided to the Constellation Program. In addition, if new technologies need to be developed to achieve the mass savings, the technologies, timeline, and budget will be identified at the end of the project.
Thermostabilized Shelf Life Study
The objective of this project is to determine the shelf life end-point of various food items by means of actual measurement or mathematical projection. The primary goal of the Advanced Food Technology Project in these long duration exploratory missions is to provide the crew with a palatable, nutritious and safe food system while minimizing volume, mass, and waste. The Mars missions could be as long as 2.5 years with the potential of the food being positioned prior to the crew arrival. Therefore, it is anticipated that foods that are used during the Mars missions will require a 5 year shelf life. Shelf life criteria are safety, nutrition, and acceptability. Any of these criteria can be the limiting factor in determining the food's shelf life. Due to the heat sterilization process used for the thermostabilized food items, safety will be preserved as long as the integrity of the package is maintained. Nutrition and acceptability will change over time. Since the food can be the sole source of nutrition to the crew, a significant loss in nutrition may determine when the shelf life endpoint has occurred. Shelf life can be defined when the food item is no longer acceptable. Acceptability can be defined in terms of appearance, flavor, texture, or aroma. Results from shelf life studies of the thermostabilized food items suggest that the shelf life of the foods range from 0 months to 8 years, depending on formulation.
System-level Analysis of Food Moisture Content Requirements for the Mars Dual Lander Transit Mission
In order to ensure that adequate water resources are available during a mission, any net water loss from the habitat must be balanced with an equivalent amount of required makeup water. Makeup water may come from a variety of sources, including water in shipped tanks, water stored in prepackaged food, product water from fuel cells, and in-situ water resources. This paper specifically addresses the issue of storing required makeup water in prepackaged food versus storing the water in shipped tanks for the Mars Dual Lander Transit Mission, one of the Advanced Life Support Reference Missions. In this paper, water mass balances have been performed for the Dual Lander Transit Mission, to determine the necessary requirement of makeup water under nominal operation (i.e. no consideration of contingency needs), on a daily basis. Contingency issues are briefly discussed with respect to impacts on makeup water storage (shipped tanks versus storage in prepackaged food). The Dual Lander Transit Mission was selected for study because it has been considered by the Johnson Space Center Exploration Office in enough detail to define a reasonable set of scenario options for nominal system operation and contingencies. This study also illustrates the concept that there are multiple, reasonable life support system scenarios for any one particular mission. Thus, the need for a particular commodity can depend upon many variables in the system. In this study, we examine the need for makeup water as it depends upon the configuration of the rest of the life support system.
Advanced Life Support Food Subsystem Salad Crop Requirements
As the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) begins to look towards longer duration space flights, the importance of fresh foods and varied menu choices increases. Long duration space missions require development of both a Transit Food System and a Lunar or Planetary Food System. These two systems are intrinsically different since the first one will be utilized in the transit vehicle in microgravity conditions while the second will be used in conditions of partial gravity (hypogravity). The Transit Food System will consist of prepackaged food of extended shelf life. Microgravity imposes significant limitations on the ability of the crew to handle food and allows only for minimal processing. Salad crops will be available for the planetary mission. Supplementing the transit food system with salad crops is also being considered. These crops will include carrots, tomatoes, lettuce, radish, spinach, chard, cabbage, and onion. The crops will be incorporated in the menu along with the prepackaged food. The fresh tasting salad crops will provide variety, texture, and color in the menu. This variety should provide increased psychological benefit. Preliminary studies on spinach, tomatoes, and bok choy have been completed. Sensory and analytical tests, including color and moisture were conducted on the chamber grown crops and compared to store bought spinach, tomatoes, and bok choy. Preliminary studies of the appropriate serving sizes and number of servings per week have also been conducted.
The Challenges in the Development of a Long Duration Space Mission Food System
The Advanced Food System at Johnson Space Center/NASA will be responsible for supplying food to the crew for long duration exploratory missions. These missions require development of both a Transit Food System and of a Planetary Food System. The Transit Food System will consist of pre-packaged food of extended shelf life. It will be supplemented with salad crops that will be consumed fresh. The challenge is to develop a food system with a shelf life of 3 - 5 years that will use minimal power and create minimal waste from the food packaging. The Planetary Food System will allow for food processing of crops grown on the planetary surface due to the presence of some gravitational force. Crops will be processed to final products to provide a nutritious and acceptable diet for the crew. The food system must be flexible due to crop variation, availability, and shelf life. Crew meals, based on thesc: crops, must be nutritious, high quality, safe, and contain variety. The Advanced Food System becomes a fulcrum creating the right connection from crops to crew meals while dealing with issues of integration within a closed self-regenerative system (e.g., safety, waste production, volumes, water usage, etc.).