Dragon returns to Earth with mice and cookies baked in space
After several months docked to ISS SpaceX’s cargo Dragon returned to Earth today, bringing back forty mice send up in December for research and some cookies that were baked in space.
Researchers want to inspect the handful of chocolate chip cookies baked by astronauts in a special Zero G oven just in time for Christmas. The oven launched to the space station in November, so astronauts could pop in pre-made cookie dough provided by DoubleTree. A spokesman for the hotel chain said five cookies were baked up there, one at a time. The company plans to share details of this first-of-its-kind experiment in the coming weeks. “We made space cookies and milk for Santa this year,” NASA astronaut Christina Koch tweeted late last month from the space station, posing with one of the individually wrapped cookies.
Scientists also are getting back 40 mice that flew up in early December, including eight genetically engineered to have twice the normal muscle mass. Some of the non-mighty mice bulked up in orbit for the muscle study; others will pack it on once they’re back in the lab.
At the moment the only way to get experiments like this back from ISS is with cargo Dragon. Hopefully that will change when Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser mini-shuttle finally flies in the next few years.
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After several months docked to ISS SpaceX’s cargo Dragon returned to Earth today, bringing back forty mice send up in December for research and some cookies that were baked in space.
Researchers want to inspect the handful of chocolate chip cookies baked by astronauts in a special Zero G oven just in time for Christmas. The oven launched to the space station in November, so astronauts could pop in pre-made cookie dough provided by DoubleTree. A spokesman for the hotel chain said five cookies were baked up there, one at a time. The company plans to share details of this first-of-its-kind experiment in the coming weeks. “We made space cookies and milk for Santa this year,” NASA astronaut Christina Koch tweeted late last month from the space station, posing with one of the individually wrapped cookies.
Scientists also are getting back 40 mice that flew up in early December, including eight genetically engineered to have twice the normal muscle mass. Some of the non-mighty mice bulked up in orbit for the muscle study; others will pack it on once they’re back in the lab.
At the moment the only way to get experiments like this back from ISS is with cargo Dragon. Hopefully that will change when Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser mini-shuttle finally flies in the next few years.
The support of my readers through the years has given me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Four years ago, just before the 2020 election I wrote that Joe Biden's mental health was suspect. Only in this year has the propaganda mainstream media decided to recognize that basic fact.
Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Even today NASA and Congress refuse to recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation:
5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.
Your headline made me the remember the headline about the Panda walking into a restaurant. Eats Shoots and Leaves. Mice baked in space. Yummy ?
I’ve heard commentators in the news moan that cookies, wine, and other “non-serious” payloads are oh so terrible, deliver no useful results, and are just the plaything of rich people. But I think it’s great. It brings in money for upstream company, tests out various business models, some people will certainly learn something from it for future use, and it’s usually no tax money that’s “wasted.” So more power to cookies, bread, and wine in space.
A little bit off-topic, but related to SpaceX:
SpaceX is building a short test tank made up of two different bulk-head types (as it seems). I proposed that measure/approach (building at first a test tank) months ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjsJQ6d8wEw
Jerry–
Cream –
“Pressed Rat And Warthog”
Live at Royal Albert Hall 2005
https://youtu.be/_txpe6Ie2Nk
3:40
@Jerry Greenwood
You beat me to it! But, they are a tasty combination!
Ian C. noted: “I’ve heard commentators in the news moan that cookies, wine, and other ‘non-serious’ payloads are oh so terrible, deliver no useful results, and are just the plaything of rich people.”
What? The news commentators think that future astronauts, living long term in space, won’t want to cook or drink? I guess those commentators haven’t tried a permanent diet of Tang and Space Food Sticks.
Edward–
do they still make those space-food-sticks?
Q: is any whiskey being aged on the ISS?
Edward,
I’ve to add in all fairness that it’s from a few general journalists, not industry specialists. The kind that thinks that we should solve all problems on Earth before we send anything into space and who see anything that’s not state-controlled and doing “serious science” skeptical.
wayne,
I know of two cases. 2011-2015 from Ardbeg distillery (Scotland), 2015-2017 Suntory distillery (Japan). But it’s not available for consumption (yet).
Ian C.–
thanks for that tidbit on the ‘cohol.
here we go…. (let’s ask the interwebs)
Ardbeg in Space Supernova 2015
Dr. Bill Lumsden
https://youtu.be/iLbn8Udv4TI
5:01
Turning to Mice-in-Space….
…there has to be a joke in there somewhere about getting a Cat on board to keep the ISS rodent-free.
it’s not Space, but it’s a nice assignment:
Chief Mouser –
The Downing Street Cats
https://youtu.be/oXkY8rBiPPo
10:50
“Since 1929, the British Prime Minister has employed an official cat called The Chief Mouser to exterminate vermin at 10 Downing Street.”