Astronauts to get oven for space station cookies | US | Journal Gazette – Fort Wayne Journal Gazette

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. Forget reheated, freeze-dried space grub. Astronauts are about to get a new test oven for baking chocolate chip cookies from scratch.

The next delivery of supplies for the International Space Station scheduled for liftoff this weekend includes the ZeroG Oven. Chocolate chip cookie dough is already up there, waiting to pop into this small electric oven designed for Zero Gravity.

As a tantalizing incentive, sample cookies baked just this week are also launching Saturday from Virginia on Northrop Grumman's Cygnus capsule, for the six station astronauts.

The experiment explores the possibility of making freshly baked goods for space travelers. With NASA eyeing trips to the moon and Mars, homemade food takes on heightened importance. What's in orbit now are essentially food warmers.

Run by a New York couple, ZeroG Kitchen aims to create a kitchen in space one appliance at a time, starting with the oven.

You're in space. I mean, you want to have the smell of cookies, said ZeroG Kitchen's Jordana Fichtenbaum, a social media specialist for hotels and restaurants.

Previous station crews have created their own pizzas using flatbread and warmed them in the galley. Astronauts have attempted other creative cuisine, mixing and heating chopped onions and garlic, for instance, and whipping up salads from station-grown greens. Results have been mixed.

Also collaborating on this first-of-its-kind space bake: Texas-based Nanoracks, which designed and built the oven and arranged the flight. The oven's maximum heat is 350 degrees, double the temperature of the U.S. and Russian food warmers aboard the space station.

Nanorack manager Mary Murphy anticipates a baking time of 15 to 20 minutes per cookie. The first cookie will be the real test; it could end up looking like a blob or a mini pancake in the absence of gravity. Three of the space-baked cookies will be returned to Earth for analysis.

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Astronauts to get oven for space station cookies | US | Journal Gazette - Fort Wayne Journal Gazette