Space Station Crew Forced to Cut Calories

gollum123 writes "CNN and others are reporting that food is running so low aboard the international space station that both the crew members have been asked to cut their calories, at least until a Russian supply ship arrives in a little over two weeks. The situation is so bad that if a Russian cargo vessel scheduled to arrive on Dec. 25 has a mishap or is significantly delayed, the astronauts, one American and one Russian, will have to abandon the station and return home months ahead of schedule. An independent team is looking into how the food inventory ended up being tracked so poorly and how it can be improved in the future."

Space McDonalds?

.. where are they when you need them?

Re:Space McDonalds?

I'm pretty sure midnight snacking is what caused this problem. I mean, the ISS goes around the earth quite a few times every 24 hours, and the station probably experiences night every time. Now astronauts are by definition geeks, and I have never met a true geek who can keep themselves from heading to the snack cupboard at around midnight. Just think about how much snacking they end up doing and it is amazing their food supplies lasted as long as it did.

As for McDonalds in space... no, no, no. That is how it starts. First the midnight snacking, then you start doing late night runs to McDonalds, then you have to buy the bigger space suit.

Re:Sick joke...

No...fricking moron.

Q: Why do they only drink Sprite at NASA?

A: Because they can't get 7-Up!

And the Challenger didn't go up, it went down. Fuck dude...get it straight. The Iraqi Information Minister's second cousin was more funny than you.

Re:Sick joke...

Hey I know the Iraqi Information Minister's second cousin. I mean, he's my second cousin. And he's fucking hilarious. Get it straight, man. Stop spreading disinformation on the Internet, the one place everyone can find tons of true, undisputed facts. The one place on earth (aside from Iraq of course) I am truly at home.

- Iraqi Information Minster

P.S. Iraq rules, long live Saddam! America will never defeat Iraq! Baghdad will never be taken! Death to the Infidels, and...

Shit, gotta go.

Christmas

"a Russian cargo vessel scheduled to arrive on Dec. 25". So they won't me missing out on the brussel sprouts this year. Poor sods :)

Only 2 astronauts

Is the team usually this small or have most of them buggered off for Christmas?

they have already eaten the others

posting anonymously due to grossness.

Re:Only 2 astronauts

the Soyuz can hold 3, which has traditionally been the crew size on the station. until shuttle flights resume, the crew size will be limited to 2, since the Russians can't crank out enough Soyuz and Progress (supply) missions to support a crew of 3.

Don't bother with the Russian food jokes.

Before people start mocking Russians, and their food situation, just let me say that I ate more of, and better quality food when I was in Russia than I usually do in the UK. Salo though, is horrible stuff.

Re:Don't bother with the Russian food jokes.

and better quality food when I was in Russia than I usually do in the UK

You do know that we Brits are the culinary laughing stock of the world? That's why I'm glad to be Scottish. Who else would think of the deep fried mars bar / deep fried pizza?

Re:Don't bother with the Russian food jokes.

Americans? (Fried Twinkies, Fried applies, Fried

Fried arteries?

You're making this WAY too easy

Must ... resist ... comment ... about English food.

I'm proud of myself, but the effort at self-restraint gave me a headache.

Open sauce application here?

IIRC, the database software that tracks the food inventories on board the space station and the space shuttle on longer flights runs on proprietary code. Perhaps if the software were revamped, and open source software used instead the community could help out a little? Many eyes make for few bugs -- and when the bugs are as easy to spot as the "food" entry reading zero I see no reason to put up with badly written, unfree software.

Hell, with the savings made they could probably upgrade the menus a bit, instead of eating paste three times a day they could afford to buy the astronauts some hot grits or something equally tasty once in a while.

This project needs to be put out of its misery.

I like my toys as much, no possibly MORE then the next guy. And God knows aviation is my thing.
The Space Station should be a no brainer.

But there comes a time where you have to say, 'Look we gave it the good old college try. If it was meant to be it would be a success already, but alas it isn't working out.'.

For Gods sake deorbit it already.

Could there possibly be a more humiliating end to the space station then being abondend for lack of food?

Re:This project needs to be put out of its misery.

'Look we gave it the good old college try. If it was meant to be it would be a success already, but alas it isn't working out.'.

Whether it is a sucess depends on what you consider it's purpose to have been. In so far it has a purpose it is to exist and be manned, nothing more, and at that it has suceeded. The problems, beyond the expeted small technical ones, have all been due to America not having a worthwhile launch system to do their end of the job.

All of the other supposed purposes which it has not suceeded against were bogus anyway. No one had a real scientific mission for it for instance. These purposes were just made up to get the budget past politicians who had no interest in space projets per-se. So, except for the politics, there is no reason to worry that it hasn't achieved them.

And there's no real science going on...

This could be the final straw for the ISS boondoggle. You can't do astronomy from the station that's even a tenth of the precision of Hubble. Why? All the vibrations from all the environmental gear. In fact, you can't do decent science experiments [space.com] of any type. Why? Two people can't take time from just holding the place together to do the experiments, and we lack the budget (and now - the food!) to have a big enough crew to make the place something other than a multi-billion-dollar Astronaut Habitrail. [habitrail.com] Right now, it's no better than Mir was in its final days: astronauts spend all their time trying not to die. '"At present, the primary goal of the ISS is unclear," the NRC study observes.' I think it's dangerously close to changing from an investment to a sunk cost.

This has got to be one of the few jobs ....

...where finishing ahead of schedule is a bad thing!

Maybe the astronauts jus ate too much all year so that they can be back home for Christmas turkey.

This is really bad

The problem with living in microgravity is that the lack of acceleration results in the decalcification of bones and the atrophy of muscle tissue. Some exercise (like the much-mocked Soloflex) can help stave off this atrophy, but the real key to the whole solution is to keep calcium and protein levels in the body high.

Restricting food intake will result in some very serious physical damage to the astronauts. If you've ever seen footage of astronauts who have just returned to Earth after a long mission, they are hardly able to stand. That is with full nutrition. The poor astronauts up there now will have to deal with much lowered calcium and protein reserves in their blood and will likely suffer from advanced osteoporosis as well as general muscular atrophy.

I'd go ahead and blame Windows programmers for this mistake. But in all seriousness, this is probably a result of the reliance on the cooperation of multiple nations to do the right thing according to the schedule. It's hard enough getting cats into a pen, it's that much harder to get countries known for 'cutting corners' (like Russia) to do their job correctly.

Re:This is really bad

It's hard enough getting cats into a pen, it's that much harder to get countries known for 'cutting corners' (like Russia) to do their job correctly.

Without the corner-cutting Russians they would have to wait for the next Space Shuttle for food... could be a long hungry wait. (yes, I know that they have a Soyus capsule for emergencies, which incidentially also is Russian).

Re:This is really bad

It's hard enough getting cats into a pen, it's that much harder to get countries known for 'cutting corners' (like Russia) to do their job correctly.

Um, you do realize, don't you, that the effects you're talking about here were documented by Soviet cosmonauts after long-term missions aboard Mir? Sounds to me like they did their jobs pretty damn well.

Oh, and in case you missed it, the Russians aren't coming up short when it comes to ISS flights - NASA is. The Russians are stepping up to the plate and getting both US and Russian crew into orbit.

Survivor!

Why not turn it into a new reality TV show, a la Survivor? This could easily provide a smidgen of the funding to keep the space station going. And instead of voting people off the space station, the person who loses a challenge gets eaten, so the food situation practically solves itself.

Interesting and worrying too!

It's interesting to note that as Americans, who believe we have the best and greatest technology on the globe (though we depend a lot on other countires), cannot get [back] to the Space Station unless we utilize "out-dated" Russian technology!

This hurts me because in a few decades, when the majority of our manufacturing base has been outsourced, we'll have to depend on outside help for the very basics of our way of life. This is already happening if one considers the flu vaccine.

The Russians, though poor, seem to make better technical decisions. I remember a slashdotter mentioning here sometime ago that Russian helicopters can be fixed with the simplest of everyday materials and still deliver (read reliably fly)! Contrast that with American ones that require hours of maintenance for a few hours of flight. The Sea Kings (of Canada) require 30 hours of maintenance for every hour of flight, and they are unavailable for operations 40 per cent of the time. http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/cdnmilitary/seak ing.html [www.cbc.ca].

Imagine...........!

I've seen and heard this story...

... from many "news" outlets.

It is uniformly described as a "diet" or "cutback".

Will someone please explain to me why no one is willing to use the term "forced rationing"? As that certainly seems to be the most accurate description from the high peak of reason and sensibility where I reside...

Or maybe the "news" is not about presenting "accurate description"s.

Re:Eat poop

That's like the British astronaut who was visiting the Mir space station and asked the resident Russian cosmonauts what they did for entertainment. "Oh, we have a bottle of vodka," said one of the Russkies. "Would you like a shot?" The Brit took a swig from the bottle. "It tastes a bit weak," he remarked, "I expected real Russian vodka to have a bit more kick!" "Well," said one of the Russians, "It's been through each of us six times already!"

Re:Great

just change the gravitational constant of the universe!