#adminAKOPINOY Astronomical adobo! Pinoy scientist cooks up a way to make dishes in space Filipino scientist Apollo Arquiza, a postdoctoral research associate at Cornell University, is inventing new ways for astronauts to cook their favorite foods in space. Arquiza and fellow research associate Bryan Caldwell joined environmental engineering associate professor Jean Hunter in conducting the first ever partial gravity cooking activity last April, onboard a G-Force 1 microgravity space simulator plane. Hunters lab is studying the scientific and social aspects of food in space. Other tests included a simulated Mars mission in Hawaii to test resource use, menu fatigue, and the effects of home cooking in an enclosed environment. There is also a bed rest study to check how simulated weightlessness affects smell and taste. During their mission, the researchers tested a space galley jointly designed with Susana Carranza of Makel Engineering in Chico, California. The team, in four flights launched from Houston, filmed how sizzling oil would splatter while the plane made parabolic maneuvers to create short periods of partial weightlessness. Such conditions aim to simulate the zero gravity that astronauts have to cope with during extended stays on the Moon or other planets whose gravity is a fraction of that of Earth. Food analysis Under lower gravity conditions, the food settled more slowly while more oil appeared to fall outside the pan. Oil droplets also went farther from the pan than it would under Earth conditions. The red-splattered strips from the mission are now being analyzed. From them, researchers hope to develop cooking technology in low gravity. “Understanding oil spatter in reduced gravity is a big step toward designing safe and convenient cooking facilities for future space colonies,” Hunter said. Design cues The team took design cues from submarine galleys and chemical fume hoods used in labs, and came up with an enclosed unit with activated charcoal filters and a fan that draws particles away from the cook. But the unit also had to be rigid enough to endure 9 Gs of force—and keep odors from frying in check. gmanetwork/news/story/380859/scitech/science/astronomical-adobo-pinoy-scientist-cooks-up-a-way-to-make-dishes-in-space
Posted on: Fri, 26 Sep 2014 05:27:09 +0000