How about Baked Cookies in Space? Nasa Astronaut Jessica Meir discusses this with the students.

station this is Houston are you readyfor the eventHouston this is station I’m ready forthe event bran Blanc East Medical middleschool this is Mission Control Houstonplease call station for a voice checkangie bussinger with East middle schoolhow do you hear me I hear you loud andclear Grand Blanc how do you hear mewonderful loud and clear thank you somuch for taking the time today to talkto these incredible 8th graders for herewith students teachers congressman danKildee councilman Creasy and localrepresentatives from the Grand Blanccommunity the students today have somequestions for you about what it’s likewhat it was like to bake the first everchocolate chip cookie in space what it’slike to live in space and how we canmake space exploration more hospitableso let’s have the questions begin helloI’m Christopher Dan and the question Iwill be asking is how did the astronautsmake the basic cookies for the ISS wellthe answer is right above my head herein the US lab on the International SpaceStation and this is the zero-g oven Iknow you can’t really see it becauseit’s in this overhead rack and reallyall you see is a flat face with the nameof the oven on it but we actually placedthe cookies in there and I will show youI have an example right here with methis is actually the cookie that wasbaked in this oven so you can see thatit is in this small little plasticenvelope with these aluminum sides andit can be inserted into the oven so thatit stays in place and can bake and thatis really all we had to do it was allset up for us like this the cookies weresent up basically just an ax lump ofcookie dough and we all we had to do wasinsert that into the oven and let itbakehi my name is rachel castle and myquestion is how did the cookie look whenit was taken out of the oven well whenwe first before we first put it in andactually I wasn’t the one that bakedthem baked them Italian astronaut Lucaparmitano had the pleasure of baking thesamples so I didn’t actually see thembefore they went in but it looked like alittle piece of cookie dough just like araw piece of cookie dough that you wouldsee you could buy at a grocery store ormake it home and it was already in thislittle package and once he inserted themin it came out and the cookies you knowspread out a little bit more just likethey would on your baking sheet at homewhen you take them out of the oven andthey turned a little bit darker in coloras well just like you would expect froma baking cookies on the ground okaythank youmy name is Arianna she listen do youthink cookies were a good first item inthe bacon space and why absolutely Imean who doesn’t like freshly bakedcookies and I can tell you the one thingthat I do distinctly remember from whenthese were baking as I mentioned theoven is right here above my head andthis is in the lab which is really oneof the central points in the spacestation so all of the crew members arepassing through here going to theirdifferent work sites and to theirsleeping quarters going to the bathroomanywhere they need to go on the spacestation they often sail right throughhere and the lab was full of thiswonderful smell of baking cookies andI’m sure all of you are familiar withthat if you come home and and your momor your dad or your sibling or maybe youare baking some cookies and you smellthat smell and how good its how good youknow that fills fills up your nostrilsand how good that smell is and how youcan just imagine really wanting to eat aa cookie and maybe have a glass of milkwith it too when you have that sensationand we had that here in the lab I couldsmell those cookies baking and it was agreat smellmy name is Manish Chilton and in whatways did baking of fresh cookie make theISS feel more like home well I think itfelt at home and just in the way that Idescribed it when I think about when I’mbaking I actually love to bake on thegrounds I bake a lot of cookies andmuffins and that kind of thing and Ioften bring them to people to share withat work so it did remind me of that itreminded me when I bake myself or orwhen I when I was a kid at home and mymom was baking she’s a wonderful chefand a wonderful Baker too so that didsmelling that aroma of something freshthat was baking in the oven here on thespace station really did make me feel athome hello my name is Steve McDonald andwhen you’re on the ISS what things fromEarth you know people ask me a lot aboutwhat I miss on the space station and theanswer actually is nothing I reallydon’t miss anything up here you know ofcourse it would be nice to see my familyand friends and there I thought that Iwas really going to miss the outdoors Ilove being outside I love nature beinghiking in the trees or skiing in thewinter and of course it would be greatto do that you know when I look downespecially right now in the winter and Isee all the snow I think about skiingand and that would be great but itdoesn’t really it’s not the same as if Ireally am missing anything I think thatthat is because we’re up here in thisreally unique exceptional very veryspecial environment and it’s totallyalien everything is different thananything you’ve ever experienced in yourlife so you can imagine if you’re athome and you’re sitting on the couch andlet’s say cookies for example you arenever gonna have a cookie again youprobably would miss miss the cookies butif you’re in a totally differentenvironment that you’re not used tohaving you know anything up here becauseeverything is so new and different Ithink that’s one of the reasons why Idon’t really miss anything everything uphere is so exceptional so unique sobeautiful the things that we get toexperience and see looking down on theearth going out for a spacewalkall the different scientific experimentsthat we participate in up here there’sso much exciting stuff going in all thetime but it’s hard to miss anything elseall right thank you my name is Taylorfields and my question is in what waysdo you think hospitable touches likebaking can improve space travel I thinkanything that we can do first of all forpsychological support just to bring someof those elements from home like we weretalking about those elements become evenmore important when we’re talking aboutlong-duration submissions so I’m a peerexample for example for seven months mycolleague appeared drew more drew Morganhe’s up here for nine months and one ofour other colleagues Christina cookyou’ve probably heard about her she wasup here for almost a year so bringingsome of those elements in to remind usof the things from back home really areimportant for our psychological supportthe other really important factor infood sources and the ways that we cangrow and prepare food in space areimportant for long-duration missions fordeep space missions when we go furtherthan the International Space Stationwhen we go back to the moon and weeventually go to Mars we’re going tohave to be more sustainable on thosemissions we’re not going to be able tobring everything with us because itwould just be too much cargo totransport so some of the things that wedoing up here are looking at somesustainability of future food productionsystems that we might use for thosedeep-space exploration missions forexample another thing that we had uphere perhaps a little bit healthier thancookies we were actually growing mizunalettuce a type of very very tastylettuce kind of has that strong mustardytaste and flavor and I love eating saladand lettuce on the ground and so we wereactually growing that up here forseveral of the first months of mymission we had two different harvestsand we were evaluating the growth ofthose plants under two differentwavelengths of light one which was morered one which is more blue and alsodifferent fertilizers in the root matbecause like I just mentioned it’s goingto be very important to be able to growand provide a food source for these deepspace missions and that also had a lotof psychological impact just like thesmell of freshly baked cookies it wasreally satisfying for me to be able totake care of those plants to seesomething alive and growing up here youknow everything else that we have ispackaged food we don’t have plantyou know we don’t have nature around usup here so that was a really criticalpart of the experiment was seeing howthe interactions of growing and takingcare of those plants watering them everyday having the sensation the texture ofthe plants and then even getting to eatthem at the end of the experiment as asalad that did a lot for ourpsychological impact as well I am Elenaand how did you get up to the ISS andhow long have you been there I think youasked how did I get up to the ISS andhow long do I spend and I came up herejust like all the crew members since theSpace Shuttle retired in 2011 we all flyon the Russian Soyuz a rocket and Soyuzspacecraft so that involves a lot ofworking to train and learn how tooperate that spacecraft in Russia at atin Star City which is the Gagarincosmonaut training center where ourRussian counterparts trained and workedand that was an amazing experience Ispent a lot of time in Russia living andworking with them and learning how tocopilot the spacecraft and we launchedup here from Baikonur Kazakhstan wheretheir launch site is for the Soyuz wearrived on the space station about sixhours after we launched and I have beenup here since September 25th so I willbe up here another few months and thatwill be about a seven-month mission forme it’s all going by way too quicklythough I will tell you I’m not lookingforward to leaving so soon just becausethere is so much excitement and anadventure up here I’ll be very sad toleave it all behind thank youhi my name is Celine and how do you talkto your family kids or friends fromspace so again along these lines ofpsychological support one of the thingsthat our amazing ground teams do for usis to maintain those contacts with ourfamily just like the cookies just likethe lettuce it’s important for us tokeep those connections for our mentalhealth and our well-being and so weactually have weekly family conferenceswith our loved ones and we can evenrotate through different people if wewant for example for me I’ve had thoseconferences with many different peoplemy mom my siblings and other friends tooother people are talking to theirspouses to their children and it’s atwo-way video chat just like Skype orFaceTime would be and we are allocatedone of those per week and we getsometimes we get extra ones if it’ssomebody’s birthday or if it’s a holidayand we have time to connect on apersonal level with our loved ones wealso make phone calls and without thevideo portion but we can call from acomputer program as well we can call acell phone and if we need to talk toanybody on the ground then we can callthem and do that and catch up a bit onthe phone so the nice thing is we canstay in good contact with our familyfriends while we’re up here hello myname is Taylor and how do you say drunkbe an astronaut did you know you’re akid and if you were an astronaut whatwould you be I actually did want to bean astronaut my entire life pretty muchI started saying it when I was fiveyears old and I’m not exactly sure why Ithink one of the things was that I wasvery fascinated with science and withnature around me and really just thiswhole scheme and this whole idea ofexploration and to me I just wanted tofind out more about everything around meand so in addition to wanting to be anastronaut biology was my favoritesubject I was just really fascinated bythe remarkable diversity in the animalkingdom and in the plants and in theanimals all around me and so I actuallydid have a previous career beforebecoming an astronaut actually all of usdo we all get selected to be astronautsafter we’re I’ve already had anothercareer so for me I was working as ascientist as a comparative physiologistmeaning I was looking at the physiologyof animals and I was lookingspecifically at the physiology ofanimals and extreme environments so Iwas really interested in animals thatlive and perform in these extremeenvironments like deep diving animalsunderwater seals and emperor penguins inthe Antarctic and also high-altitudeanimals so animals that live extremelyhigh altitudes which are morechallenging than those that weexperience a sea level so the thing thatboth of those environmentshaving common is low levels of oxygen soif you’re a diving emperor penguin or adiving seal of course you have to holdyour breath just like a human does butsomehow an emperor penguin can die for30 minutesan elephant’s concealed can die for twohours so I was working as a scientisttrying to understand how these animalscan exhibit those incredible behaviorsand specifically in how they managetheir oxygen stores just like we do ashumans to breathe when you think normalpeople or non astronauts will be able tovisit space well we do still considerourselves normal people even though weare also astronauts and I think that’sone of the the interesting things aboutour job we all were once children justlike you we all came from very differentbackgrounds and from different placesand you know I think it really is atestament to show that anybody can do itanybody can really do what they whatthey set their minds out to andincluding now I think in the very nearfuture space is becoming more and moreavailable to everybody not justastronauts we are ready there arealready several different companies onthe grounds that are doing sort ofcommercial flights whether or notthey’re suborbital flights or coming allthe way up to the space station and soit already is accessible to some peoplenow of course in the past it hasinvolved quite a bit of money to be ableto afford those opportunities but Ithink as more and more people and moreand more companies get involved in thisjust like anything else the costs willcome down and it will start becomingmore and more accessible to all of theas you say normal people on the groundhi my name is Danny posh does yourtechnology work the same in space as itdoes down here on earth or is itdifferentwell there are examples of both so thereare certain things that operate exactlylike they do on the ground because theydon’t we don’t need to implementanything different so I would say forexample the equipment that we’re usingright now this is a normal video cameraa normal microphone and a normalreceiver and transmitter system we’reusing satellites to send these signalsdown to the ground and all of that isreally the same kind of technology thatis used on the ground but then there aredifferences as well because there aresome factors that are unique up here inmicrogravity when we don’t have theelement of gravity that driveseverything on the ground at an examplefor that is this zero-g oven that wewere talking about today so there arecertain types of ovens on the on theground called convection ovens that usefans to really maximize convection I’msure all of you have learned about whatconvection is in school but of course itis just this natural movement of hairthat we have on earth because hot airrises as I’m sure you’ve heard and thatcreates a natural flow of air as the hotair rises and you have this this cycleof moving air now in up here withmicrogravity there is no convectionbecause hot air does not rise withoutgravity so one of the things that thezero-g oven relies on it uses it’sbasically using electrical heatingelements to generate the the alleverything that the oven needs tooperate so those electrical heatingelements are providing the heat for thisoven and it’s heating up to 350 degreeswhich is pretty typical for what you’duse for baking on the ground thank youhi I’m congressman dan Kildee Irepresent all these people this might bethe coolest thing that I’ve ever done asa member of Congress so thank you forthis I wonder if you might tell us alittle bit about why you think it’s soimportant for us to continue ourcommitment to space exploration andsecondly how has this experience changedthe way you view the earth and how hasit changed wow those are some really bigquestions but I’m happy to talk aboutthat and thank you for all your supportofcourse we wouldn’t be here if it weren’tfor for everything that you do for us onthe ground I think that it’s spaceexploration is really to me an inherentpart of us as a human species we havethis desire to explore to go further tolook around the corner and if we didn’thave that as humans we would have nevereven explored the whole earth we wouldhave never been sure doubt in sailingships to see what was around the cornerand we would never would have evendiscovered all the continents so I thinkit is just a normal and natural inherentpart of us as humans and I think it’svery important in order for us toprogress as a society as a civilizationI also think the scientific impacts evenones that we don’t foresee are very veryimportant you know that’s one of themost important things that we know asscientists is that sometimes theunintended results the unanticipatedresults are often the most fruitful onesmaybe not just looking at the questionof the hypothesis that you’re asking youmay unfold and uncover a whole differentrealm of answers to something that youweren’t even looking at and basicscience allows those things to happenthe basic science that we accomplish uphere on the International Space Stationfor example is really important in thatwe are looking at things really for youknow for the first time in space we’relooking at things without thisever-present variable of gravity thathas always been there on the groundalways driving and perhaps masking someof the other processes on the ground sowho knows what we will uncover up hereso I think to me personally those areare the two main reasons why I thinkthat space exploration is so importantand it does change you as a personcoming up here you know this wassomething that I thought about my entirelife and I thought really in twodifferent main realms I’ve heard itdescribed to me from previous astronautsthat have flown up here and and theimpact that it has when you look back onthe earth for the very first time withyour own eyes that was quite a profoundresult during the Apollo missions whenwe were when humans first went to themoon at first looked back on our planetfrom the outside and that was reallypivotal in one way for starting theenvironmental movement when when humanslooked back and saw this very thin bandof the atmosphere around the earth andrealized how special and unique our homeplanet was and that we do really need toprotect it we need to take care of theatmosphere we need to take care of theland masses and the water of our oceansall of it it’s very special and fragileand I think when you look back on theearth with your own eyes and you seethat you see this fragile blue ball downthere in its entirety with everythingyou know every experience you’ve everhad every place every person is downthere in its entirety you really itreally does give you a profoundlydifferent feeling for your place in itand that’s really the second the secondmain rule to me other than realizing howprecious our planet is it’s realizingreally how insignificant we are ashumans and even as an entire planet inthe grand scheme of our solar system andin the universe and understanding howimportant it is to have that perspectiveand I think for as humans it’s very easyfor us to get caught up in small thingssmall minutiae that really don’t matterit is it’s just a human characteristicto feel that way but it’s important totake that step back and to take that togain that perspective and to realizereally that we are all part of somethingmuch bigger and that we are all in thistogether thank you so much thank you somuch for your questions today and let’sall thank astronaut Jessica for her timewith a big round of applausestation this is Houston ACR thatconcludes our event as we count down to20 continuous years of humans living andworking on the International SpaceStation thank you thank you to allparticipants from East middle schoolstation we are now resuming operationalaudio communicationssubscribe for more space[Music]