How to bake bread in space.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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
I wonder if someone will put this to test in a nanoracks configuration. Just think, water, CO2, and flour in and dinner rolls out, more or less continuously.
This sounds like a NASA answer to a question with a far simpler answer.
Just use yeast. And wait the hour.
It took NASA 3 years and a million dollars to design a way to write in space. The space pen. The soviets sent up a few pencils.
Patrick,
Though you know I am not a fan of NASA’s bureaucracy and overspending, the “space pen story” is actually not true. It never happened. It is one of those urban legends that people repeat because it sounds true, which tells us a great deal about how NASA does things in real life. They may not spend millions to design a space pen, but they certainly do not make it easy for scientists and engineers to innovate and be creative.
As for using yeast in space to make bread, I wonder if doing so might pose some real engineering problems. For example, plants do not grow easily or naturally in space. It takes a great deal of complex engineering and care for them to prosper. I suspect the same might apply to yeast, though I admit I am unaware of any actual experiments to test it. However, finding a simple chemical substitute that also uses less energy seems to me to be a smart engineering solution. And this article proposes just such a thing. We shouldn’t dismiss it lightly.
That system only uses less energy if you discount making the co2 water and then finding a way to mix it all inside a pressure vessel before you release the pressure to make the bubbles.
Also the assumption that we would be on a micro small spaceship with a galley the size of a closet in my opinion is way wrong. If we are going to out there long enough to bake bread then I bet we would have a few more square feet to use.
Even the station we have now is bigger than that.
As for keeping yeast a long time, drying it is not easy for the home chemist but quite possible in a small lab. Just keep samples of it dry until needed.
Plus you can’t make wine with just CO2. What are they going to drink a year out from the earth?
Vodka