The 2 NASA astronauts who’ve been stranded on the Worldwide House Station for 5 months have been feasting on pizza, roast rooster, and even shrimp cocktails — however have little or no contemporary produce to complement their diets, The Submit can reveal.
Medical doctors for the area company are carefully monitoring the well being and diets of Butch Wilmore, 61, and Sunita Williams, 59, after a latest photograph confirmed Williams trying jarringly gaunt.
A specialist linked with the beleaguered Starliner mission instructed The Submit that the pair are chowing down on quite a lot of meals, together with breakfast cereal with powdered milk, pizza, shrimp cocktails, roast rooster, and tuna, as medics guarantee they’re consuming sufficient energy.
Nonetheless, the grub, which is developed on the House Meals Programs Laboratory on the Johnson House Heart in Houston, is proscribed in the case of contemporary fruit and greens.
The ISS solely replenishes produce each three months, in keeping with the specialist.
“There’s fresh fruit at first,” they stated, “but as the three months continues that goes away — and their fruits and vegetables are packaged or freeze-dried.”
In line with NASA, the ISS shares about 3.8 kilos of meals per astronaut per day, with a stockpile of further meals for any surprising extension of missions.
The meals, which is personalised to fulfill every astronaut’s every day necessities, is normally freeze-dried or packaged, and may be reheated utilizing a meals hotter on the ISS.
All meat and eggs are cooked on earth and solely need to be reheated in area. In the meantime, dehydrated soups, stews and casseroles want water that comes from the area station’s 530-gallon contemporary water tank.
The ISS even recycles the astronauts’ urine and sweat into contemporary water, making certain little or no waste.
Williams and Wilmore put together their very own meals and eat it on magnetized trays with metallic utensils.
The specialist insisted the astronauts are well-cared for and there shouldn’t be any concern for his or her well being.
“Nothing is left to chance and that includes their food,” the specialist defined.
“So to be accurate, it should be very clear that any weight loss is not due to a lack of provisions on the ISS. There is plenty of food, even for an extended mission.”
The astronauts’ diets turned worldwide information after NASA launched pictures that confirmed Williams with sunken cheeks and a noticeably thinner body.
Williams downplayed the considerations about her seen weight reduction as “rumors,” and stated her distinction in look was the results of fluid shifting in her physique as a result of weightlessness of area.
“There’s some rumors around out there that I’m losing weight and stuff,” Williams stated in a video interview. “No, I’m actually right at the same amount.”
Williams and Wilmore handed their pre-mission physicals earlier than the area flight and have been solely slated to be on the ISS for eight days.
However when their Boeing Starliner skilled technical malfunctions, they turned stranded on the ISS.
They’re now of their fifth month on the ISS. A House X flight is slated to deliver them again to Earth in February.
