Thanksgiving in space: A full day of work, then turkey from a pouch (and football)

The 2 People aboard the Worldwide House Station gained’t be getting Thanksgiving Break day, however they are going to be getting NASA’s conventional turkey dinner … out of a vacuum-packed pouch.

“We’ll warmth this up, and it’ll style actually good, identical to you’re having it at dwelling,” NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough, the station’s commander, mentioned in a pre-holiday video.

Additionally on the menu: mashed potatoes, cornbread dressing, inexperienced beans and mushrooms (all dehydrated), and pouch-preserved candied yams plus cherry-blueberry cobbler for dessert. There’ll be powdered candy tea with lemon for Kimbrough, an Atlanta native.

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson, who arrived at the station over the weekend, will likely be in on the festivities, together with the crew’s three Russians and French astronaut Thomas Pesquet.

“After all, Thanksgiving in my world isn’t full with out some soccer, so we’re going to have Mission Management ship up some dwell soccer video games for us to observe, to finish the expertise of Thanksgiving,” Kimbrough mentioned. (Nevertheless, he’ll have to attend till Saturday to observe his alma mater, Georgia Tech, play the rival Georgia Bulldogs.)

Kimbrough’s a veteran of the orbital Thanksgiving expertise, by advantage of his mission aboard the shuttle Endeavour in November 2008. Again then, there have been 10 spacefliers aboard the house station for turkey dinner (with cranberry crumble for dessert).

House station menus have come a great distance for the reason that early Nineteen Sixties, when Undertaking Mercury’s astronauts had been restricted to squeeze tubes and freeze-dried foods. NASA remains to be experimenting with off-Earth delicacies: Researchers have discovered that meals tends to taste a bit more blah in space. So don’t be shocked if the astronauts use additional seasoning so as to add some zip to their turkey dinner.