Sunday, March 03, 2013

Canadian Space Snacks brought by Dragon to ISS

When Canadian astronauts Julie Payette and Robert Thirsk were in space in 2009, they shared a Canadian meal with their crewmates from around the world. Local foods tell the story of the regions and the cultural diversity of each country
Canada then launched the "Canadian Snacks for Space" contest in 2011 so the public could help astronaut Chris Hadfield select some Canadian treats to bring on his upcoming mission. 
Winning foods by town and province:
 Egmon in British Columbia,   Candied Wild Smoked Salmon;
  • Oyama in British Columbia, Smoked Salmon Pate;
  • Edmonton in Alberta: Cranberry Craze Buffalo Stix;
  •  Abbotsford in British Columbia: Hapi Foods Groups inc. cereals;
  • Saint-Bruno in Quebec, dried apple chunks;
  • Surrey in British Columbia  Sun Rype fruit bars;
  • Montreal in Quebec,: Biscuit Leclerc orange zest with green tea cookies;
  • Toronto in Ontario  maple syrup cookies;
  • Whistler in British Columbia : the Whistler Chocolate;
  • Charlottetown in Prince Edward Isl Island Abbey Foods  honey drops;
  • Regina in Saskatchewan,  chocolate bar; 
  •  Kitchener in Ontario  maple syrup.

8 comments:

kallamis said...

I love that picture. And if any of you haven't tried that Astronaut Ice Cream as it is commonly called, try it. There's a Neapolitan that Mountain House makes, and it is available on Amazon as well, (hell, what isn't now days). I'll put it this way. I don't like Neapolitan. I like that Neapolitan however. I am sure there are quite a few different manufacturers out there, but I can vouch only for that brand. Just haven't got around to trying any others yet.
I'd include a picture of it, but I sort of ran out again.
There different varieties, mint chocolate chip, ice cream sandwich, etc. and all of them are pretty freaking good, and excellent for camping, long bicycle rides or hikes, or if like me you get a taste for ice cream even when you have been outside and are freezing your caboose off in the winter. Not a time for ice cream from the freezer, believe me, so that stuff comes in handy then as well.
I remember the first time I had that ice cream when I was a kid. This was back when anything and everything astronaut was the in thing, and it should still be that way today in my book.

Beam Me Up said...

Really? That styrofoam crap? Texture like stale cheese doodles, but what I have tasted had very accurate flavor, no my next treat is going to find some icream dots. Yep, never had em.

kallamis said...

This was actually really good. Actually tasted like ice cream. I know what you are talking about, and yeah, that stuff was horrible. But this stuff now has a whole better flavor to it. And the texture wasn't like that other stuff as well. Since the onslaught of the health kick, and the new interest in prepping and survival, it has all gotten a lot better.
You just have to watch who's stuff you buy. I won't even touch anything that WISE puts out. A rabid insane drunken monkey could make better stuff than theirs. But I have a question that I'm basically too lazy to look up.
If you freeze water by using the cold of space itself, would it last longer in a drink, or a shorter time in a drink. I'd kind of like to try dropping a few cubes in a warm root beer, and a cold root beer, and see what happened. And what would happen to the root beer. I come up with insane questions, I know.

Beam Me Up said...

No actually that is a very interesting question. First is truly understanding the environment that you are "freezing" anything. Space is unique because it is an almost perfect vacuum which resists the transfer of thermal energy. Second there is virtually no pressure on the material to be frozen. Water exposed to space directly boils turning a large percentage of the material straight to vapor. This of course will freeze. But engineers have found it difficult to cool anything in the more traditional ways, mainly because of the vacuum. What you will find is that the most efficient way to cool or freeze water in space is a pressurized container, cooled with traditional refrigerants and for all intents, no different that you can produce in your own freezer.

kallamis said...

Yeah I know about the boiling. I meant just the cold, and not the vacuum. I was half asleep, and just assumed everyone could read my mind here. Let me try this again. Using a sealed ice cube container lets say. So that the water won't boil out,freeze it with that extreme cold there. Now what would happen to water that was frozen that deep of cold. Now once frozen, drop it in say room temperature root beer. I'm thinking it would explode.
I realize just tossing it out in the vacuum isn't going to work. But what happens to water when it's taken to nearly absolute zero. Is it even considered to be frozen water any more.
And here's a question. What would happen to say a steak frozen the same way. Say you freeze it first in the regular fashion, and then freeze it to nearly absolute zero. Would the thing even be edible any longer? Now in the case of the steak, yes, expose it to the vacuum of space. And just assume that no radiation was picked up by it.
Things I think about while sleeping basically.

Beam Me Up said...

I really have to disagree. Ice is ice. Unliess it was frozen under extreme pressure it will perform as ice should. You are looking for exothermic reaction and I have to ask, where is this energy?Coldness in lack of energy not an excess of such. There fore if the ice acts no differently, then the suspension medium will not react any differently. You are looking for reactions reserved for the elements that transit from a solid to a gas. The only way that I can see H2O doing this is in an incredibly energetic environment. In this case it would go from liquid to steam, which wouldn't really be an explosion but a really fast expansion of vapor.

kallamis said...

Good enough. That answers that question. I was wondering because of how the ice has cracked up in a glass here before, and I have had a chip fly out before as well. That's why I was wondering about that part. Thanks for that.

Beam Me Up said...

It is all a matter of degree of course. The reaction is exothermic not endothermic. It has to absorb heat energy to create the observable effect.

There are other things to look for in a true explosion, but I think we have it covered from here.