Culinary state of exception: Space drivers were set on diet because food reserves were unexpectedly scarce
Since the 16. October 2004 are the US Astronaut Leroy Chiao and the Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov aboard the ISS. Your stay should last six months. But theoretically, her mission could be ended in two weeks, as the supply room, which should actually stow foods, slow but certainly empty. If the for the 23. December Provided Russian Progress Supply Flight is postponed, the two-headed ISS crew must rise to the rescue capsule and compete the hired jerk flight to the earth.
Gourmets that have lost them all are the ease of weightlessness whose "engraving" Follow on the way are known, only little positive mains. Who hovers in orbit, already fights a short time later against equilibrium treasures and bone or bone or. Muscle loss as well as other infirmity – and not least against appetization sorts.
Salizhan S. Sharipov and Leroy Chiao at the end of November on the room station, when the food ration was not lowered yet. Image: nasa
Gaume pleasures occur under microgravitational conditions does not seem to be silent, not to mention potential heating attacks. Often, the food even proved itself as an appetite drawer. If there were only vitamin capsules and flavored dry food to Apollo times, and subsequent spatfiner generations usually had to remove with loveless dietary planes and consume freeze-dried, packaged in silt films or conserved in doses.
Tapped emergency reserve
On the international space station, the large outdoor item in all, the range of food but far large and the food itself decided by Delizios. Certain, so far the inmates had no reason to complain. The regular supply bottles with the shuttle driving and Soyuz-feeder capsules always guaranteed a minimum mab of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and other food. But since the tragic Columbia scales of 1. February 2003 is the timetable on or. To completely confuse the international room station ISS. If the ISS astronauts in the youngest past still had to loose technical difficulties with the water or oxygen supply, now US astronaut Leroy Chiao and his Russian colleague Salizhan Sharipov, who have been hovering for two months on the international space station ISS, a problem opposite, which was ignored in the last official press releases of the NASA simply.
This is a matter that the Russian space resorts Rosaviakosmos already addressed days before, but NASA consulted press conference only at the end of last week: To the menu on the space station it is not well ordered. Already since November, the room driver duo is served from the food reserve because the food reserves on board the ISS have gone faster to the tilts than accepted. Especially in some scarce foods such as milk, meat, bread and canned food handles the room drivers on the "iron" Reserve back.
Actually, the emergency reserve – Nomen Est Omen – only in about 45 days may only be in "Case of the trap" be tapped, for example when the supply lug is interrupted to the ISS for more extensive time. Although the service missions to the Orbital Station have become less frequent and heavier since the Columbia disaster, because no US shuttles fly more and the Russian space has fewer cargo capacities anyway. Nevertheless, the Russian consumer systems produced a small amount of cargo before recently, ie food and technical equipment, for the two-headed crew into space for the two-headed crew. Only with the progress supply flight fixed on November, which fell into the water due to weather and due to technical difficulties, the important mission moved further backwards. And until today she is still out.
Ate too much?
Even if the food supply is sufficient according to Russian media until the first January week, this was reason enough for the American space for space to take the escape forward. So that at least a supply is guaranteed until after Christmas, the NASA, which was busted, put the two ISS room drivers on diet.
The slipper in space. Leroy Chiao, Salizhan S. Sharipov and Yuri Shargin celebrated on 16. 10. 2004 Your encounter after the expedition 10 crew arrived on the ISS
Instead of the intended 3.000 kilocalories may only have about 2 years for a few days.700 kilocalories per capita daily. "This is still true with the optimal value, which requires the guide to food", explaned Sean Roden, the leader of the Expedition 10 Crew during a press conference in the Johnson Space Center in Houston . "These are big professionals, and they will do all this, which is demanded and expected of them", illustrate rods. "They are good things, and they are fine." There were no complaints yet, so Roden. The daily ration by 300 calories short but is really the absolute minimum.
Meanwhile, it beams in the broken cheese. In the search for the responsible for the mistake, some media have already identified a guilty: the previous crew has caused the food-related bottleneck through excessive consumption itself, so the vicious subordination that launched some Russian newspapers. The food shortage is due to the fact that the previous long-term crew, Michael Fincke and Gennadi Padalka, simply eaten too much.
For William Gerstenmaier, the ISA program manager of the ISS, this reproach is in every way lush. The expedition 9 crew is not responsible for the culinary malashe. "This crew has not eaten in any way at an excessive way."
Computer-generated presentation of the ISS, as it looks like in the current construction phase
With criticism but also NASA did not save. For the bottleneck she made the Russian side responsible. Your allegation: The outstanding progress flight that has been shifted again and again has prevented the necessary replenishment. In addition, in a more early transport flight food were replaced by spare parts for a defective Russian oxygen generator.
The spokesman for the Russian space farmers Vyacheslav Mikhailichenko brought the core of the problem but best to the point: "Custom maby you took ready enough food for six months; But since the shuttle driving has not been flying for almost two years, the ISS is only enough food for three months."
Immediate nottruck the crew to the earth possible
Although the situation is not yet burned, but at the end of the year of premature jerking of the crew could seriously stand for the debate. Should be the for the 23. December Start of a Progress Supply Vehicle to the Space Station Do not go within a few days above the bean, came as a result of the threatening food shortage to a highest aggressive and at the same time expensive termination of the tenth manned ISS mission.
According to the Message Agency ITAR-TASS, the emergency plan is unmistakable: until the end of Christmas, there is no new food to the ISS, a speedy return of the crew to the earth with the docked soybean rescue capsule TMA-5 is provided. "In this situation, the for the 23. December Planned start of the cargo traumist Progress especially important", The Russian Space Agency Roskosmos explained last week in Moscow.
NASA program manager William Gerstenmaier confirmed this: "The progress-16 flight is very important, there is no doubt druber. But he is not more important than the last progress mission or the last Soy Start." One has already begun, so barstenmaier, with the first preparations for the possible rejection of the astronauts has begun.
ESA introduces ISS flyer
Meanwhile, the European Space Agency ESA announces that the Italian Scienceastronaut Roberto Vittori as part of the Italian Soyus Mission "Ecstatic" On the 15th. April 2005 from Kosmodrom Baikonur in Kazakhstan to launch the international room station.
Vittori is a member of the ESA European astronauts corps and also actively as a pilot in the Italian Air Force. On flight 10s of the Soyus TMA-6, Vittori participates as a flying engineer and is accompanied by the Soy Flight Commander and Roskosmos cosmonaut Sergei Crawe Jow and the NASA astronaut John Phillips. When walking and jerking, Vittori will play an active role in the control and the docking manove of the room capsule.
One of the most important objectives of the mission are to the ESA astronauts the implementation of numerous experiments and fruitful international cooperation on board the space station. In addition, the old rescue capsule, the Soyus TMA-5, exchanged against Soyus TMA-6 and the current ISS team will be expedient from the expedition 11 crew, provided that the expedition 10 crew does not have to be for reasons of security with the "Lifeboat" lie down a fire.