Isro astronauts to savour idlis, rasgullas in space

Jun 15, 2012 - Ram Kumar Ramaswamy | DC |

Hyderabad

Tags:

When Indian Space Research Organisation sends its men into space for the first time in 2016, they will not miss home food in the cosmos. Mysore-based Defence Food Research Laboratory has created and packaged Indian food items that can be easily deployed in zero-gravity situations. A top DFRL official said upma, idli, parantha and rasgullas, among others, would be packed in dehydrated, bite-sized servings that will be hassle-free to store, open and serve.

DRFL additional director Dr K. Radhakrishna said, “We have had a long association with Isro and its programmes since the 1970s. We have also come up with products that are now served to our Antarc-tic mission and mountai-neering units. This requirement for space food was a challenge because of weight constraints and serving limitations.” Dr Radhakrishna said the food items created for the space mission only required hot water to be added. “Since they are completely dehydrated, they will absorb the hot water and will be ready to eat in no time,” he said. “Tests show there is no compromise on taste and it will be just like it is in the conventional form.” Dr Radhakrishna said these food items are sterilised against biological pathogens and heated to high temperatures to dry them completely. At times, they are deep-frozen to separate moisture, like in case of milk for rasgullas.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/161187" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-f2d5b8b582bf11769080237f0f431603" value="form-f2d5b8b582bf11769080237f0f431603" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="85552954" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>