Get ready for a space-age culinary adventure! The Tiangong Space Station has just witnessed a groundbreaking moment: a barbecue in zero gravity!
Six brave Chinese astronauts, aboard the Shenzhou 20 and Shenzhou 21 missions, have cooked and savored the first-ever space barbecue. This achievement is a testament to human ingenuity and our relentless pursuit of making space feel more like home.
But here's where it gets controversial... cooking in microgravity is no easy feat. The oven, specially designed for space, had to overcome unique challenges. It had to operate without overloading the station's power grid and provide a smokeless baking environment, ensuring the astronauts' safety.
In a video released by the Astronaut Center of China, we see the crew preparing chicken wings in a specially designed grill cage, which they then place in a compact compartment on the station's wall. The oven's maximum temperature was cranked up to 190°C, allowing the astronauts to roast and bake, a significant upgrade from merely warming prepackaged meals.
And this is the part most people miss... convection, the process where air circulates and heats food, simply doesn't happen in space. Engineers had to devise a unique heating method and manage cooking fumes, all while keeping the crew safe.
The Chinese astronauts' achievement builds on previous experiments. In 2020, the International Space Station (ISS) tested a prototype oven, baking five chocolate chip cookies in orbit. Three of those cookies even made it back to Earth!
The Shenzhou 21 crew, who launched on October 31, will spend the next six months aboard Tiangong. They're relieving the Shenzhou 20 astronauts, who've been living there since April and will return to Earth on November 5.
So, what do you think? Is space cuisine the future of long-duration space missions? Or is it just a fun novelty? Let's discuss in the comments!
