What you can’t eat and drink on the ISS

Future space tourists will enjoy not only the pleasure of traveling, but also a bit of disappointment from the ban on eating their favorite dishes and drinks in space. On the other hand, not a single case of food poisoning has been recorded in the entire history of the ISS. This is despite the fact that the cosmonauts’ diet at the station has 200 basic dishes, plus individual requests. You can eat delicious in zero gravity, but you need to follow the rules.

Ice cream
It turns out that in microgravity, dehydrated foods become very fragile. For example, the usual ice cream in the “space format” breaks down into the smallest ice crystals, and NASA could not solve this problem, so they excluded it from the astronauts’ diet. And instead of bakery products, everyone likes to eat tortillas made of yeast-free dough, which do not create crumbs.

Liquid salt, wet pepper
Spices in space in their usual form are prohibited, because a flying suspension of particles threatens not only the equipment, but also the health of people. Therefore, on Earth, dry spices are turned into liquid and sticky, by analogy with sauces for salad dressing. And instead of salt and pepper shakers on the ISS tubes.

Soda is taboo
In zero gravity, gas and liquid do not separate as they do on Earth, so carbonated drinks are deadly. There is a risk that a normal burp will fill the lungs with water bubbles and the person will drown. NASA admits that they could not even develop a method for safely testing the effect of soda on a person in zero gravity, and therefore simply banned this type of drinks.

Alcohol is not allowed, but it is possible
The main danger of drinking alcohol in space is not in the impact on the human mind and coordination, but in the specifics of the operation of the air and water regeneration system on the ISS. It is very sensitive to ethanol, which becomes too volatile in zero gravity, so there is nothing on the ISS with its content. On the other hand, in short flights, when you do not need to live in orbit for months, the presence of alcoholic vapors in the air will not have time to become a threat. And therefore, wine, without gas, will certainly be served to space tourists.