🖖 Steaming ice and other challenges

Wanna know some of the challenges of cooking on the moon?

The tech. The foods that we can grow.

I’ve been doing a fair amount of research. And there’s plenty of material for future emails.

I want to share some of them with ya to give you an idea- I’m gonna jump right in: 

The list

It’s surprising how much of a role gravity plays in everything that takes place in the kitchen.

We can’t sauté like we do on Earth.

With a lunar gravity less than 17% as strong as ours, foods jumping in a pan would take their time getting back into the pan. 

If they made it back in at all.

Air pressure plays a huge role in the boiling point of water. If you’re boiling rice in New Orleans, Louisiana with an elevation of -2m below sea level you’d have no problems- 

Water boils at 100°C at sea level.

Take that same pot to the top of Mount Everest (elevation 8,849m) and it only gets up to 71°C before it starts to boil.

There’s less air pressure.

Go even higher into space where there is no air to create any air pressure. Water boils instantly.

How long would it take to cook rice in freezing steam?

Looks like we’ll need to create special pressure cookers. Maybe even a mix between current pressure cookers and sous vide immersion circulators.

With machines like that, it seems more and more likely that the lunar kitchens we create will need to be separate modules airlocked away from other parts of the habitat to reduce the risk of damage.

Cooking oil particles would be everywhere. Aromas would linger longer without a strong range and exhaust system.

And we all know how loud those can get. So those will need to be revised.

Another strike against sautéing

Will water recyclers be enough to turn waste water from astronauts into enough drinking water and extra for cooking?

We’ll need a system that can extract oxygen from the regolith or a way to burn hydrogen like in The Martian. Get some water that way.

All foods will need to grow in contained modules using hydroponic systems. I still think aquaponics (the one with fish) is the way to go.

It’s a natural way to get nutrients for the plants.

Hydroponic systems rely on nutrient salts or inorganic options. Though the benefit is that the system can self monitor and add specific nutrients as needed.

And all those systems will need to be shielded from micro-collisions of space debris and solar and cosmic radiation.

The food may need to be grown underground. Though I don’t know if studies have been done to see if digging big holes is feasible.

That’s all I have to say about that

These aren’t deal breakers.

But they are part of the challenges we need to overcome to survive our lunar colonies without expensive resupply missions once or twice a year.

We’ve got our work cut out for us.