Want your food kosher in space?
While some of the food can be kosher, it is presently not possible for an astronaut on ISS to maintain a completely kosher diet.
It has nothing to do with the space station per se; it has to do with our food production facility,” Kloeris told Space.com. “We have a single packaging room on the U.S. side. All of the food that’s part of our standard menu that we provide — from what I understand, in order for them to be kosher and halal, they have to be done in separate, unique facilities. Therefore, everything we package would not meet that requirement.”
Kloeris noted that it’s possible to travel with a limited allotment of kosher or halal foods, in order to honor an astronaut’s heritage; every astronaut is allowed a certain number of crew-specific containers sent to the space station, which can account for about 10 percent of their diet.
The same limitations also apply to halal food for Muslims.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
While some of the food can be kosher, it is presently not possible for an astronaut on ISS to maintain a completely kosher diet.
It has nothing to do with the space station per se; it has to do with our food production facility,” Kloeris told Space.com. “We have a single packaging room on the U.S. side. All of the food that’s part of our standard menu that we provide — from what I understand, in order for them to be kosher and halal, they have to be done in separate, unique facilities. Therefore, everything we package would not meet that requirement.”
Kloeris noted that it’s possible to travel with a limited allotment of kosher or halal foods, in order to honor an astronaut’s heritage; every astronaut is allowed a certain number of crew-specific containers sent to the space station, which can account for about 10 percent of their diet.
The same limitations also apply to halal food for Muslims.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Good!
This is not entirely true. If they wanted to, the prep room could be cleaned, non-kosher items removed, a run of food produced, then go back to buisness as usual. Many plants that make kosher food do it this way. Stagg Chilli in fact does it this way. The vast majority of the time, they do not bother getting the production line certified kosher, but on some schedule, they do an extra cleaning, get supervision in house, and do a large run of kosher stock. I met the guy who organizes this in Atlanta a few years ago. Welch’s grape juice does something similar around Passover time.
Why is kosher food for space important? Are there so many Jewish astronauts? Next step, pork-free food for Moslem astronauts (BTW, are there any of them?)
Alex
Future workers and scientists.
Robert would the water still be considered clean even after recycling?
This is another example of how free market capitalism works better than a centrally controlled system. As geoffc mentioned, the free market already found a solution for several food producers to the general public, and once “space food” can be supplied by non-government sources (e.g. when Bigelow and other non-governmental space habitats become operational), then nations, companies, and organizations will have more freedom to supply their people with specialized foods and to meet other specialized needs.
Government organizations are notoriously inflexible, attempting to create a one-size-fits-all solution to solve a mutually exclusive problem. Free markets are immensely flexible, attempting to create solutions that satisfy as many people as possible, even if that means they need separate processes and extra work.