In the zero-gravity environment of space, astronauts often consume liquid food. Of the few solid foods astronauts carry, the most common is bread . Of course, they are made differently than ordinary bread.
In a non-gravity environment, ordinary bread will leave too many shavings, and there is almost no chance of cleaning them completely. That debris can be a big problem for a complex structure like a spacecraft.
For this reason, another way of processing bread for astronauts was invented. These small loaves are hard so they don’t leave crumbs easily. And because of its small size, just one sniff is enough.
In addition, it was necessary to solve the problems of drying and mold formation due to long storage. The technologists of the wish have solved it in a very simple way.
At the same time, they even learned to make rye and honey bread.
The composition of the dough is exactly the same as for ordinary bread: flour, sourdough, salt and leavening agent. Each small loaf is kneaded and baked by hand. Rye bread should weigh 6 grams and wheat bread should weigh 4 grams.
Each bread is packed in 10 pieces and packed in 80 boxes. Of course, special packaging and thermal sterilization technology for delivering bread to space has been developed. The bread container is a very strong box that can withstand 0.6 atmospheric pressure and temperature above 100 degrees.
In this way, each small bread retains enough moisture and does not harden. But, of course, the amount of moisture should be kept at a level that does not cause mold. Thanks to this, the bread can be stored for up to 15 months without losing its properties. In this way, the astronauts eat fresh bread every day, as if it had just been taken out of the oven.
