back to article Thanksgiving in orbit: Irradiated turkey, yam-and-marshmallow mix

Irradiated smoked turkey and thermo-stabilized yams are on the menu for astronaut Thanksgiving on the International Space Station today. American commander Kevin Ford and his two Russian crewmates Evgeny Tarelkin and Oleg Novitskiy will tuck into a special bag of food prepared for the holiday, and get the day off from normal …

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  1. NoneSuch Silver badge
    Happy

    Americans are great at eating in orbit.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnPGDWD_oLE

    1. Captain Save-a-ho
      Coat

      Americans are great at eating

      There, I fixed it.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Item lower right in first image?

    Are you sure that it is an input for the food digestion process? It looks more like an output to me.

  3. Cliff

    No fridges or freezers

    Just leave the perishables on the outside windowsill, should stay cool enough out there I'd have thought

    1. Asiren

      Re: No fridges or freezers

      Depends on which side of the craft it is. (Sun-side might be quite warm!) Also, unless the astronauts need to EVA every time to access it, it'll probably be a redonkulous heat-leakage.

      But I'm no space engineer, so...

    2. KjetilS
      Boffin

      Re: No fridges or freezers

      i thought one of the problems with heat dissipation in space was the lack of oxygen. Iirc, heat needs to go from one medium to another, and that doesn't work very well in a vacuum, like space.

  4. Pete 2 Silver badge

    How long 'til "orbiters" have their own Thanksgiving holiday?

    Once people start to colonise LEO for real, and transform their habitats from being dependent on resupply from Earth to being able to fend for themselves, they will evolve their own "thanksgiving" celebrations. If history is anything to go by, that first step will be followed later by a breakaway from the "home" planet - though since success is really being at the top of the gravity well, not the top of the food chain - us "earthlings" would lose and conflict that arose.

    Generally, wars of independence are followed by civil wars, after factions in the breakaway region starts competing for power. After that, we can look forward to inter-orbital wars (or possibly more wars over the Libration points, minor planets of the Moon).

    Then, maybe in a thousand or two years humanity will start to settle down, realise there's enough space, rocks and sunlight to go round and learn to get along with each other.

  5. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Headmaster

    SOCIALISM!

    > There are no fridges or freezers for food on the ISS

    WHY! Jesus Christ with all the 30 billions or so spent, one would expect a lousy freezer to be around. Most of the ISS is probably thermal control and tinfoil anyway.

    Also.,. Bah "Thanksgiving":

    <blockquote>

    Each year at this time school children all over America are taught the official Thanksgiving story, and newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines devote vast amounts of time and space to it. It is all very colorful and fascinating.

    It is also very deceiving. This official story is nothing like what really happened. It is a fairy tale, a whitewashed and sanitized collection of half-truths which divert attention away from Thanksgiving's real meaning.

    The problem with this official story is that the harvest of 1621 was not bountiful, nor were the colonists hardworking or tenacious. 1621 was a famine year and many of the colonists were lazy thieves.

    In his 'History of Plymouth Plantation,' the governor of the colony, William Bradford, reported that the colonists went hungry for years, because they refused to work in the fields. They preferred instead to steal food. He says the colony was riddled with "corruption," and with "confusion and discontent." The crops were small because "much was stolen both by night and day, before it became scarce eatable."

    After the poor harvest of 1622, writes Bradford, "they began to think how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop." They began to question their form of economic organization.

    This had required that "all profits & benefits that are got by trade, working, fishing, or any other means" were to be placed in the common stock of the colony, and that, "all such persons as are of this colony, are to have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock." A person was to put into the common stock all he could, and take out only what he needed.

    This "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" was an early form of socialism, and it is why the Pilgrims were starving. Bradford writes that "young men that are most able and fit for labor and service" complained about being forced to "spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children." Also, "the strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes, than he that was weak." So the young and strong refused to work and the total amount of food produced was never adequate.

    To rectify this situation, in 1623 Bradford abolished socialism. He gave each household a parcel of land and told them they could keep what they produced, or trade it away as they saw fit. In other words, he replaced socialism with a free market, and that was the end of famines.

    </blockquote>

    1. peyton?
      Devil

      Re: SOCIALISM!

      There's an "official" Thanksgiving story? News to me. Most I recall is making a turkey out of a tracing of my hand.

      However, I can concede that I may have slept through that portion of history class.

      However, I must dispute that "newspapers, radio, TV, and magazines devote vast amounts of time and space to it." From October 31st until the Friday after Thanksgiving, all American media is solely devoted to coverage of upcoming "Black Friday" sales.

      (On said Friday, coverage switches from Black Friday sales to Black Friday carnage.)

  6. toxicdragon

    Oh god

    Due to some pretty bad allergies I have to eat some pretty unpleasant stuff, but even that puts me off.

  7. I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

    Always a bit worrying when your 'food' requires barcodes to identify it. Presumably on the grounds that otherwise you'd be loading it onto the old Progress capsules for waste dumps.

    It's even worse than what turns up in front of you when you order a meat curry.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "two different sorts of apple-based pudding"

    That's no way to describe the new iMacs, I thought they looked quite good

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Worth eating that to go to Space or not:

    One the one hand, I'm mostly anosmic so the food shouldn't taste any different up their than at ground level.

    On the other hand, I'm not sure I want to know what that stuff tastes like.

    On the gripping hand, Space is cool - I'd put up with most things for the chance to go.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Worth eating that to go to Space or not:

      there. Oops.

  10. phil8192
    Boffin

    Irradiated turkey ... Mmmmm!

    Actually, any turkey cooked in an electric oven is "irradiated" — by infrared electromagnetic radiation. If it's reheated in a microwave oven, it's done by even longer wavelength radio waves.

  11. Bill B

    Thanks God we don't have Thanksgiving

    I'm beginning to get an idea of what the other ingredients of a Thanksgiving meal are and I'm glad we don't have it.

    I think I'll stick to brussel sprouts.

  12. John Brown (no body) Silver badge
    Flame

    Thanksgiving?

    And they all get a "special" meal and the day off? Will the American commander do likewise when his Russian crew celebrate Defender of the Fatherland Day?

    It does seem a little odd that the international crew of the International Space Station would take the day off to celebrate what is a local public holiday in only one country. Lets hope that they don't start taking all public holidays off for each of the nationalities present (In theory, up to 6 different nationalities. They'll never do any work!!

    1. david 12 Silver badge

      Re: Thanksgiving?

      >local public holiday in only one country

      Is there any other kind? Christmas...No. New Year...No. Golden Week...No.

      I don't know how important Defender of the Fatherland Day is, but with an international crew, things like this have to be handled sensitively, and with some forward planning.

      Thanksgiving is one of the two great Family holidays in a country that does not get much annual leave. The American base stations will be deserted except for a skeleton crew, and there will be no American ground support for scientific or technical activities. They might be able to justify working on Presidents Day or 4th of July, they certainly will be working on Good Friday, but working on Thanksgiving was just never going to happen.

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