Ten ways to get involved in space without leaving Earth

Experiencing weightlessness, watching the Earth rise over the stark lunar landscape, and seeing the stars exposed without the veil of the Earth's atmosphere: who hasn't thought about what it would be like? At the moment, getting into space is the preserve of the elite, whether they are scientists, military, or those wealthy enough to purchase a rocket ride. Space is a just dream to most of the rest of us.

But this doesn't mean that we have to live as if our feet were made of clay, Earth-bound like a worm when what we really want to do is fly like a bird. There are many ways to be part of space without ever leaving the Earth. I'm going to take you through some of them.

1. Visit a planetarium

The Melbourne Planetarium at Scienceworks. Image credit: Stewie Donn

Planetariums are dome-shaped cinemas designed to show the night sky and other celestial phenomena. The idea has been around since the 17th century, but today's planetaria use the best of high-tech projection and software to create immersive experiences. For a short time, you can be taken out of yourself and visit the furthest reaches of the universe. Most capital cities have them, and some regional centres too. They're not all stars and galaxies: planetarium shows also look at space junk, space weather, and aliens (hoorah!) among many other spacey good things. Here's a list of some places you can find one:

Wollongong Science Centre and Planetarium (NSW)
Sir Thomas Brisbane Planetarium (Brisbane)
Adelaide Planetarium
Launceston Planetarium
Melbourne Planetarium
Swinburne Virtual Reality Theatre, (Melbourne)
Ballarat Observatory 3D Theatre (Vic)
Sydney Planetarium
Horizon - the Planetarium (Perth)

There are even mobile planetaria which will come to you! In NSW, contact the Planetarium Education Group; in Queensland, Starlab Education, in Western Australia, the Spacedome.

2. Keep up with the breaking news from space

Subscribing to a space news service is a good way to get all the latest dirt on what's happening in the solar system. Some are more geared towards the general public than others. You can subscribe to their feeds or newsletters, and also follow them on Twitter.

Space.com is a very reliable and prestigious source of news.

Space Daily has a slightly more industry focus. You can subscribe to their newsletters for free.

Universe Today also covers astronomy.

Space News covers civil space, military space, commercial space and satellite communications business.

Space Ref is a space news and reference site. This includes space exploration and missions, and a space calendar of events.

Space Info features astronomy, Australian science, and spaceflight news

Aviation Week also covers a lot of space news.

Of course, there are a multitude of space resources online that cater to all interests. Starting points for the Anglophones are the NASA and ESA websites.

3. Do some space craft

Spacecraft, geddit? Don't spend all your time staring at the screen as if it will magically whisk you into orbit, get your hands dirty! And gluey and covered in paint, and maybe some glitter. I suppose you can get some kids involved if they're hanging around and won't go away.

Fabulous astronaut masks! made by Erin at Luck and Bliss.

Se7en makes bottle top aliens!

This is rather gorgeous: a 3D space garland from Jessika Hepburn

Doodle and Stitch make a simple but effective paper rocket

Here's another rocket made from a toilet roll - my favourite craft item

This rocket's made from a plastic bottle. You can have space fun while recycling too!

There are some more ideas in this post and there are plenty of amazing space craft projects on the internet.

4. Visit a space museum

Of course, the ne plus ultra of space museums is the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC. Another favourite is the Musee de l'Air et de l'Espace in Paris. But you don't have to go overseas to see some wondrous space artefacts. Here's a few more local options.

Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (the Powerhouse), NSW, has the only permanent space display in the country.

Woomera Heritage Centre, SA, also has an amazing rocket park. Not for playing, the rockets are real.

South Australian Aviation Museum, located in Port Adelaide, has plenty of Woomera artefacts if you can't get to the outback.

At the Esperance Museum in WA you can see the remains of the space station Skylab, one of the most famous spacecraft ever to re-enter the atmosphere.

At the South Australian Museum you can see Australian astronaut Andy Thomas' spacesuit!

The Canberra Deep Space Communications Complex, ACT, has a brilliant museum celebrating both Australian and US space.

In Tasmania, don't miss the Grote Reber Museum. This is the heartland of radio astronomy!

Don't forget your local museum or heritage centre either - I've found some extraordinary space artefacts displayed in regional museums and small towns. Often they've been donated by someone who has worked in aerospace or has travelled to space places.

5. Follow a spacecraft on Twitter

This is one of the best things about social media. There are a number of spacecraft with Twitter accounts, and some hilarious parody accounts too. As a follower, you get the latest information and the opportunity to interact with the spacecraft (ie the team running it). But beware. You can become very attached to your robot space friend, and if the mission ends, it can be a very sad and emotional experience.

Here are a few recommendations.

@NSFVoyager2 - Voyager 2. Run by the amazing Dr Paul Filmer, you can expect regular updates on distance from Earth and which instruments are collecting data.

@MarsCuriosity - the Mars Curiosity Rover. This is the only rover still working on Mars after the death of Opportunity in 2019.

@SarcasticRover is a witty parody account which has a huge following. As well as space science, you get commentary about life on Earth from the viewpoint of space.....

@OSIRISRex is a NASA mission to the asteroid belt.

@Haya2e_jaxa is a Japanese asteroid mission with several components, due to return its sample to Earth in 2020.

As well as actual spacecraft, most space agencies, research centres and missions have social media accounts.

6. Celebrate a space event

You can have your own space event whenever you want! Get in some space beer or wine, encourage people to dress up, make a spacey mixtape. Get crafty (see No 3) and decorate your house like a space station or mission control room. Invite your friends and talk about space with them!

There are a few space occasions which are celebrated worldwide. 

Yuri's Night is April 12 and celebrates the day on which Yuri Gagarin became the first human being to enter space and orbit Earth. This is the official website where you can register your party and or find out what events are happening in your town.

A great way to participate in this anniversary is to orbit with Yuri by watching Christopher Riley's film First Orbit, available here. The film blends archival footage and recreations of Yuri's view taken by one of my favourite astronauts, Paolo Nespoli. I love it because it's almost meditative; you have to focus on every minute through Yuri's eyes, seeing a view of Earth that was truly unique.

Later in year is World Space Week, which kicks off on the anniversary of Sputnik 1's launch on October 4th. On the website you can find guidelines about how to organise an event, as well as events planned around the world that you can attend.

I'm going to start a new one: Valentina's Day. On 16 June 1963, she became the first woman to orbit the Earth and she is still the only woman to have carried out a solo space mission. We should celebrate this! 

7. Go satellite spotting 

Although light pollution has made it harder for people in densely populated areas to see the night sky, most people would recognise a star. Fewer, perhaps, realise that they're also watching satellites.

Satellites don't have their own lights, but we can see them when they reflect the light of the Sun, often bouncing off the solar panels which power the spacecraft. Even at night the satellites are high enough to catch the Sun's rays. You'll generally only see Low Earth Orbit satellites, but there are plenty of them, as well as the International Space Station.

Stars move very slowly, but satellites are fast - after all, they orbit Earth every 90 minutes or thereabouts. Look for a fast moving light. Beware of flashing lights: this is probably an aeroplane, not a satellite.

To see the largest and brightest object in orbit, the ISS, this handy NASA site allows you to search for local sighting opportunities.

Everyone knows the old folk rhyme about wishing on the first star you see in the evening (usually Venus, by the way - a planet).

Star light, star bright,
First star I see tonight,
I wish I may, I wish I might
Have the wish I wish tonight

The sky has changed since that rhyme was made, and our relationship to it has changed also. This is Billy Bragg, in his 1983 song Looking for a New England:

I saw two shooting stars last night
I wished on them but they were only satellites
Is it wrong to wish on space hardware
I wish, I wish, I wish you'd care

Is it wrong to wish on space hardware? I say no. Instead, ask Dr Space Junk to grant your wish on a satellite. Here is my rhyme to go with your satellite spotting expedition, and it's even better because you get to make THREE wishes.

Dr Space Junk in your ship,
Watching every tiny blip.
Please bestow my wishes three:
One for Earth, one for Sea,
and one for the satellite high above me.

8. Join a space society

What could be better than making new space friends and getting to hang out at space events with them? There are a number of societies at national, state and local level which will enable you to get involved in space. Here are a few that I recommend.

Space Industry Association of Australia. This is an industry representative organisation, but definitely worth joining if you work in aerospace or a space-adjacent area.  Full disclosure: I am a member.
Space Association of Australia. Based in Melbourne, the SAA has regular meetings open to the public with guest speakers, and also has a radio broadcast.
National Space Society. This is a chapter of the US society. Every year the NSS hosts the Australian Space Research Conference.
The American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. There are chapters of the AIAA in Sydney, Canberra, and Adelaide.
The British Interplanetary Society is one of the oldest space societies in existence. (Maybe even the oldest one).  They publish a journal and a magazine.
The Planetary Society is another US one. It was founded by Carl Sagan, among others, in 1980.
Mars Society Australia is part of a global network of Mars societies. Basically they want to go to Mars, but they have lots of activities on Earth too.
Australian Space Research Institute (ASRI) is a volunteer organisation interested in space activities.

If you want to get your hands dirty, you will find local rocket societies almost everywhere across Australia. This is where you can help build and launch a small rocket. It might not get to space but it's the same technology!

9. Eat astronaut food and drink astronaut drinks

There's lots of books around showing you how to train like an astronaut, but who can be bothered with that? Let's go straight to the gourmet end of astronaut existence. Your first tool is the wonderful Astronaut's Cookbook, which combines recipes with stories of life in space.

It's a myth that the powdered drink mix Tang was created for the space program, but it was invented in 1957, Year 1 of the Space Age. It became permanently associated with astronauts and spaceflight when it was used in NASA's Mercury and Gemini programs in the 1950s and 1960s. These days it comes in many difference flavours. And you can make cocktails with it! Here is the recipe for the Buzz Aldrin:

Tang (for garnish)
1 orange slice
4 oz of vodka (this is an American recipe)
2 tablespoons Tang
Ice 

Place Tang on a plate. Run orange slice around the rim of a glass; rotate rim of glass in Tang. 

In a cocktail shaker, add Tang, vodka, and ice; shake. Strain into glass. Makes 1 cocktail.

The fanciness doesn't stop there. How about following this yummy cocktail with some luxurious Lobster Newburg, as eaten by the lucky crew of the US space station Skylab?

For dessert - of course you need astronaut freeze-dried ice cream., and it's fairly easy to obtain. Many museum shops stock it, and you can buy the original online here. A cheaper version is available from the Questacon shop. For an easy substitute, try meringues!

Breakfast is a snap. Here is a recipe (scroll down) from the Astronaut's Cookbook for a microgravity-friendly cereal.

Any food in a pouch is a good bet. You can buy lots of yogurt, fruit and baby food in this form.

10. Be aware of space for a day

You can decide to do this any time. Just for a day, think about how you are connected to space through Earth and through human technology.

It starts when the sun rises. As you lie in bed, think about Earth slowly turning underneath you, tilting you towards the Sun.

Think yourself into space. Imagine your body moving through time and space, not confined by your line of sight. Sight is not a sense that helps us here. In your mind's eye, think of how gravity is anchoring you to the surface. Be aware of the layers of atmosphere above you, until they thin out and give way to the stars and planets.

Where's the Moon? Look for it in the sky - if it's daytime, you might see its pale white curves, hard to distinguish sometimes. It seems passive, slowly moving in an arc overhead, but its gravitational force causes the tides. Up on the Moon are the remnants of human missions, forming an other-wordly archaeological record.

Perhaps you look at the weather on your phone or the television/radio news while you're having breakfast. The maps of cloud formations over Earth are brought to you from Earth observation satellites.

Every time you use your smartphone, look up and think of the satellites it's using to hook into GPS. Perhaps you get some cash out from an ATM. Look at the printed receipt: the time on it comes from satellites signals. At the supermarket, all of the goods you're about to buy are transported by trucks and ships using satellite signals.

As dusk falls, think of how you are now turning away from the Sun, turning to face the outer regions of the solar system, where human spacecraft are wending their way out into the galaxy beyond.

And of course, finish your day with some satellite spotting.

Space. You're standing in it.

What do they eat in space?

labeley.com

Space Age Archaeology: A Retro-blog-spective

Just because it's the New Year, I've decided to make a list of my most-read posts from each year since 2004, when I started this blog.

2004: Flying Saucers at Woomera 

 In September, I was researching Australian space history at the National Archives office in Adelaide. This was in the days when you sat there for hours furiously scribbling notes in pencil until your fingers bled. One of the files I looked at was the (formerly) secret UFO file from Woomera. What I discovered in this file gave me pause for thought....

2005:  The Little Lemon

Racehorses and space. You wouldn't think there was a connection, would you? However....this is what happened when my father tried to name a racehorse after Laika the dog during the Cold War.

2006:  Space biscuits and recognition for space archaeology

Once upon a time in the dim past of internet history there was a lovely man called Nicey who ran a website devoted to tea, biscuits, and sit downs. It was called, appropriately, Nice Cup of Tea and A Sit Down. It was charming and funny and full of biscuits (proper Commonwealth biscuits, not the American version of the scone), and they loved space archaeology! I wonder what happened to him?

2007: Nostalgia for Infinity: exploring the archaeology of the final frontier

This was the abstract for a session on space archaeology at the World Archaeological Congress in Dublin, which I was convening with Beth Laura O'Leary.  The title incorporated the name of a spaceship that will be familiar to anyone who has read the works of Alistair Reynolds.

2008: A rocket cake to be proud of!

No-one doesn't love a rocket cake, and for some reason anything I post about space-related food and drink goes down a treat. Kudos to my friend Kaylene Manderson, who made this masterpiece!

2009: Quirky, yet methodologically sound: a review of Space Travel and Culture: from Apollo to Space Tourism.

Michael Allen wrote a review of this book, in which I had a chapter, and more-or-less called my contribution "quirky, yet methodologically sound".  I was enchanted.

2010: Space food: recreating an authentic space experience on Earth. A review of The Astronaut's Cookbook. 

I wasn't joking about the food-and-drink bit. Another book review, but this time by me, and I have a little digression into the history of Australia's monopoly on the manufacture of Space Food Sticks. Snap them up if you find them gathering dust on a supermarket shelf, because they went out of production last year. But whatever you do, do not attempt to actually eat one. They're not very nice.

2011: Consuming the Space Age: The Cuisine of Sputnik

Nicola Twilley of Good Magazine ran a week-long distributed online conversation about food-writing. I decided to write something about space food, and this was the result.  A little bit of history, a little bit of politics, a cocktail recipe, and the Sputnik Burger!

2012: Space-craft: rockets, jetpacks, and other DIY space paraphernalia

They don't love me for my unique insights into space history or brain-splintering forays into theory. What the readers of my blog really want is recipes and spacey things for kids. I'm cool with that, though. Here's some excellent things you can make, collected together from all over the internet, and yes, there is another cake.

2013: The Anthropocene in the Solar System

I didn't post much in 2013. I had left the university for a break to return to my first profession, heritage consulting. In April, I went to the Society for American Archaeology conference in Hawai'i, and managed to injure myself rather badly, necessitating a long 18 month rehabilitation. In May, I gave a TEDxSydney talk, and shortly afterwards, life took an even more unexpected turn which I'll tell you about one day over a beer. BUT there were other good things. The lovely brain-the-size-of-planet Matt Edgeworth invited me to give a paper at the Chicago Theoretical Archaeology Group conference on the Anthropocene (so sometimes someone does actually want me for my theories), and this was later published in the Journal of Contemporary Archaeology. You can read the abstract in this blog post, and the article here.

2014: How to avoid sexist language in space - Dr Space Junk wields the red pen

They asked for it, and I delivered. Not cakes this time, but what I hope is a practical guide to eliminating locutions like "manned mission" that reinforce the idea that women like/are like fluffy kittens and aren't really suited to the man's business of space. Which, incidentally, was exactly what a Russian cosmonaut trainer said in a public talk in Adelaide last year, so don't even try to tell me it's not an issue.

2015: How would lunar mining affect the cultural significance of the Moon?

Terrestrial mining is something I know a fair bit about. In my former career as a heritage consultant, I spent a LOT of time on mining sites, and in remote areas where mining exploration was taking place. My job was the make mining companies comply with legislation that was supposed to protect Aboriginal heritage places. In this excerpt from a forthcoming paper, I consider how these principles might play out in space.



I raise a glass of dry Australian sherry to you, dear readers! I feel that 2016 is going to be an exciting year in space.....

Space cocktails #3: the October Sky

Ok, so it's November now, but I think this creation is timeless. Jack the clever bar person at First Bar, Richmond Hotel, in Rundle Mall, made this for our World Space Week party last month. It was rather delicious, rather too delicious actually, so I extracted the recipe from him and share it with you here.

45 ml Gin
15 ml Maraschino liqueur
30 ml lemon juice
Dash of elderflower syrup (Monin brand)
15 ml Alize (blue - a blue Curacao, I think?)

Then you go S & S (I've forgotten what this means but he shook it with ice and drained it, I remember that much) and pour it into a martini glass. Garnish with a cherry.

I could check but I think the other cocktails I've discussed here are the Sputnik and Ti-Punch from Kourou in French Guiana. And who can forget Vostok space beer? Future space tourists will thank us for having made these explorations on their behalf.

Space-craft: rockets, jetpacks, and other DIY space paraphernalia

I do love a bit of space craft. These delights have popped up on my radar over the last couple of days as I have been confined to bed, the result of some pre-winter disease, and with my brain unable to process anything work-related (until this morning), there has been quite a bit of mindless internet roaming and DVD watching going on. (And more toast and Nutella than a person really needs).

This beautiful rocket bookcase was made by Jesse Harrington, who is, according to their profile, a 31-year old robot. If you're lusting after this as much as I am, you can find instructions about how to make it at Instructables.  I fear it is a bit beyond my skills.

This, however, is more like it. Over at Doodlecraft, Nat has made a wonderful rocket-powered jet pack out of two plastic drink bottles, coloured felt, silver paint, tape, cardboard and hot glue. This would gladden any space nut's heart.

For some serious geekery, check out Greg B's Apollo astronaut costume:

If you want to have a go at making this costume, full details can be found here.

This one is hardcore: Sputnik in a biscuit tin.  

1. Tomy baby monitor - transmitter and aerial

2. Wireless router - backup transmitter and aerial

3. Mercury thermometer - temperature sensor

4. x4 large batteries - power supply

5. Balloon - pressure sensor (expands and pops if case punctured)

6. Power-pack - backup power supply

7. Domestic thermostat - activates fan and changes radio signal

8. Battery powered fan - moves heat to casing (once tin lid is on)

9. Biscuit tin with foil - houses components and reflects solar radiation

In 2007, the BBC News Magazine issued a challenge to create the equivalent of a Sputnik satellite using just stuff from about the house:

There are transmitters in mobile or cordless phones, wireless internet routers and baby monitors, and you may well have a thermometer in the medicine cabinet.

A party balloon can act as a simple pressure switch of sorts - a partially inflated one would certainly expand and burst if the pressure outside dropped to zero. And temperature switches can be found all over the house, including in the thermostat for the central heating system, or in the electric oven or washing machine. 

Electronic gadgets contain batteries, and fans can be found in home computers or the kitchen extractor. The only thing you may have trouble laying your hands on is a large metal sphere with whiplash aerials poking out. 

This is where your biscuit tin comes in. No whiplash aerials, but it makes a spiffy housing for all the components. As Paul Rubens, the author of this article, said, it really is incredible that technology which barely existed 50 years ago is now part of every household (well at least in some parts of the world). 

And finally, you wouldn't know you were chez Dr Space Junk unless there was a splendid rocket cake.  This one is truly ....  something else.  

Apparently, they are meant to be rockets. Of some kind. This cake was made for a Fourth of July celebration in the USA and comes to Space Age Archaeology courtesy of the marvellous Jen and her team over at Cake Wrecks (When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong). Freud could go to town on this one.

Well, now it's time for me to venture out of bed and persuade myself that fruit is a better option for a sick person than more toast with lashings of butter and Nutella. Wish me luck.

Consuming the Space Age: the cuisine of Sputnik

Ever since my esteemed colleague Dr Lynley Wallis made a special batch of cup cakes decorated with spacecraft to help me celebrate the 50th anniversary of Sputnik 1’s launch in 2007, I’ve had a bit of a thing for rocket cakes. They are a staple of children’s birthday parties and represent youthful dreams of being an astronaut – the feeling that anything is possible, our potential is infinite, and we can reach for the stars.  

Dr Lynley Wallis' special Sputnik cakes

The rocket cake is a charming example of the influence space exploration has had on terrestrial food.  This influence, it seems to me, falls into roughly three categories:

• Food decorated or shaped like spacecraft or celestial bodies.

•  Food devised to commemorate a space event

• Food from terrestrial places associated with space exploration

In this post, I want to consider the first category, in the form of food that evokes the Sputnik 1 and 2 satellites.  These recipes and dishes can be regarded as a sort of performance, half way between tangible and intangible heritage, as they exist only in the moment of their manufacture and disappear in the act of consumption.

The USSR’s successful launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 caught the USA by surprise; and the reactions of panic have been well documented. Suddenly, the night sky was transformed from a serene celestial dome to a place of menace, from which unseen attacks could be launched on the capitalist world.  At the same time, there was tremendous excitement that the shackles of gravity had been broken at last and human dreams of space were about to be realised.

While the US military and government were grappling with the political implications of Sputnik 1, one of the ways in which ordinary people responded was to translate the body of the spacecraft into something familiar and edible.  The humble olive, with the addition of three or four toothpicks to represent antenna, became a symbol of the satellite.  This was an excellent garnish for a martini, sandwich or the quintessential American food, the hamburger.

The caption from this newspaper photograph reads:  

Not to be outdone – Harriet Phydros samples a Sputnikburger which an Atlanta café rushed onto the menu. It’s garnished with Russian dressing and caviar, topped by satellite olive and cocktail hotdog.  

The hot dog is a reference to Laika the dog, who went into orbit in Sputnik 2 later in 1957.  Despite Laika’s sad demise, the visual word play is appealing; but the “not to be outdone” requires further unpacking.  Does this imply that Harriet’s imminent consumption of the Sputnikburger will somehow restore the balance of power?  Or that eating it is a small conquest of space in its own right?  In any case, this potential weapon of mass destruction has become a commodity rather than a beacon of communist ideology.  According to Lisa Parks, ‘mainstream American culture commodified and domesticated Sputnik, positioning it within the discourse of American nationalism rather then leaving it to circle the earth on its own accord” (Parks 1995:16).

The toothpick antenna appeared in other Sputnik foods.  A photograph on the cover of a 1957 Life magazine showed a young woman about to tuck into a Sputnik sundae, surmounted by a ball of icecream studded with toothpicks.  A popular hors d’oeuvre of the 1960s featured cubes of cheese, fruit and sausage threaded on toothpicks, then stuck into oranges or melons.  Another version of the hamburger combined both concepts.  The top image below, from a book on children’s parties, shows a Sputnik cheeseburger (and other delicious space-themed party food).

Image courtesy of Amy Alessio at Vintage Cookbooks

And of course there were the Sputnik cocktails.  There are several versions of these floating around; this one seems to be the most common:

45 ml vodka

15 ml Fernet Branca (a bitter Italian digestive liqueur)

15 ml fresh lemon juice

1/2 tsp sugar

Shake all together and serve in a cocktail glass.

William E. Burrows, in his classic “This New Ocean:  The Story of the First Space Age”, described the USA’s reaction to the launch of Sputnik 1 as “the Sputnik cocktail: vodka and sour grapes” (Burrows 1998:187). The culinary metaphor continued: at the time, some US politicians, including Eisenhower, blamed the Soviet lead on the hedonist consumer lifestyles of Americans. As Burrows frames it, they effectively called upon US citizens “to push away their banana splits, hot fudge sundaes, malteds, cherry-lime rickeys, barbequed steaks, and hot dogs” (Burrows 1998:191), and make sacrifices in order to regain the upper hand in the space race. Capitalist ideology had been dealt a significant blow.

Sputnik-inspired food, however, meant different things in different places.  The journalist Fred Blumenthal, travelling though Asia following the launch, observed that

Sputnik just turned the East upside-down. As it did everywhere, I suppose it appealed to the imagination.  In the Philippines, the restaurants, movie houses and taxicabs were renamed Sputnik.  One restaurant even came up with a Sputnik sandwich, the feature of which was an olive with four protruding toothpick ‘antennae’.  More important was the diplomatic loss of face suffered.  In Hong Kong, Japan and the Philippines, there was a loss of confidence in the United States and, under the surface, a sort of secret glee that [it] had been toppled from the high horse (quoted in Dickson 2001:132). 

So here, the consumption of Sputnik was almost an act of resistance against US imperialist ambitions in that part of the world. We can see in these few examples that there was an ideological dimension to Cold War food, a literal internalisation of the values that Sputnik was felt to represent for its different audiences (not forgetting that Sputnik was also a sound ……). 

The culinary legacy of the Cold War in space, however, lives on in the 21st century.  Any dish which features long spikey things can be called a sputnik; I’ve seen potato sputniks, a scoop of mashed potato with carrot and cucumber sticks for antenna; and the famous exponent of French cooking, Anne Willan, created a baked Pineapple Sputnik with whole vanilla beans for antenna (Willan 2000).  The kohlrabi (a type of turnip) is frequently called the sputnik vegetable, particularly as its leaves are angled just like the satellite’s antennas.  I’m not a fan of anything turnippy; and I regret that I don’t like olives, as it’s hard not to appreciate the simple elegance of the olive sputnik.  But I think my summer will now feature many Sputnik cocktails ……..

References
Burrows, William E.  1999 [1998]  This new ocean.  The story of the first space age.  New York:  Modern Library
Dickson, Paul  2001  Sputnik.  The shock of the century.  New York: Berkly Books
Parks, Lisa 1995 Technology in the twilight:  a cultural history of the communications satellite 1955-58.  Paper presented at the 1995 Society for the History of Technology Conference, Charlottseville, VA
Vintage Cookbooks http://vintagecookbooks.blogspot.com/2010/08/sputnik-cheeseburgers.html
Willan, Anne 2000 From My Château Kitchen. Clarkson Potter/Publishers

Food for Thinkers is a week-long, distributed, online conversation looking at food-writing from as wide and unusual a variety of perspectives as possible. Between January 18 and January 23, 2011, more than thirty food and non-food writers will respond to a question posed by GOOD's newly-launched Food hub: What does—or could, or even should—it mean to write about food today? You can check out the conversation in full at GOOD.is/food, join in the comments, and follow the Twitter hashtag #foodforthinkers to keep up-to-date as archaeologists, human rights activists, design critics, and even food writers share their perspective on what makes food so interesting. 

Space food: recreating an authentic space experience on Earth. A review of The Astronaut's Cookbook.

I've had an ongoing interest in Space Food Sticks, which have quietly vanished from Australian supermarket shelves in the last few years, despite the fact that they seemed to have a healthy export market in the US. So when I learnt of Springer's recently launched The Astronaut's Cookbook:  Tales, Recipes, and More, by Charles T. Bourland and Gregory L. Vogt, I was curious to see what it might have to say about them.

The space food stick was created by Pillsbury in a form that could be inserted into a helmet port - but of course that was never going to work with the pressure differential.  Despite this, the originally caramel-flavoured sticks were part of the Apollo menu. Bourland and Vogt imply that sales of the Pillsbury space food stick were disappointing and the product never took off, so to speak (Bourland and Vogt 2010:32).

This is interesting as they certainly took off in Australia!  They were manufactured by White Wings, a company owned by Uncle Ben's (I think). I remember them as being chocolate, not caramel, although there was a caramel version available.  In later years the box featured a picture of a BMX bike rather than a spacecraft.  Perhaps there was a subtle safety message in this:  "astronauts wear helmets, so it's cool to wear a bike helmet".  Assuming that the callow youth thought astronauts were cool, of course.

When I held a symposium about the history and heritage of Woomera a few years ago, I bought many boxes and put an individually wrapped stick in each delegate's bag of symposium stuff.  A year or so later, I wanted to buy some to take to the Centre Spatial Guyanais, and was unable to find them anywhere.  (Perhaps, in retrospect, the intended recipients in French Guiana may have reason to be grateful for that).

USA peanut butter flavoured space food stick box.
Image courtesy of Mojowski 77

Australian chocolate space food sticks.  Author's image.

While Bourland and Vogt don't have much more to say about space food sticks, they do offer a recipe for Bacon Bars (2010:35):

Bacon Bars

1 lb cooked bacon

1. Fry the bacon until golden brown

2.  Place the warm bacon into a hamburger press

3.  Exert 3000 lbs of pressure for 10 seconds

4.  Remove the compressed bacon and let cool.

Yield:  more than you would want.

After samping the bar - so that you can say that you tried it - give the rest to the family dog. One nibble, and Fido will prance around the house barking [Translation:  "It's BACON!").

While I don't own a hamburger press, or have a dog, I confess I am very tempted to try making some version of this. Hell - it's BACON!

I was also amused by this recipe:

Breakfast cereal

1 cup of your favourite cold cereal*

1/3 cup of powdered milk

2 tsp of sugar or 1 packet artificial sweetener

1/2 cup cold water

1 resealable plastic sandwich bag

*Frosted cereals stay crisper longer than unfrosted cereals.

1.  Put all the ingredients in the bag.

2. When ready to eat, add water and reseal the bag.

3.  Shake the bag to dissolve the milk and sugar.

4. Open the bag and eat immediately with a spoon.

5.  Write a note to yourself to never do that again unless you become an astronaut.

Yield:  1 serving.

I think this recipe may reflect the US palate, much sweeter than the Australian, as I can't imagine any adult would actually add sugar to an already frosted cereal, let alone 2 teaspoons.  But perhaps things have to be sweeter in space.  (Hmmm.  This might not be too bad with Froot Loops ......).  If you want to try this one, I think the first step should read "Put all the ingredients in the bag EXCEPT the water".  There is an art to writing recipes that is often overlooked.  Or perhaps I mean a logic.

So you can see this is a very quirky and entertaining book, and may even have some recipes worth trying at home in it, as well as the historical and scientific background to space cuisine. (They include Russian space food as well).  I like the idea that we can be space tourists at home by recreating space experiences, in the same way that space food attempts to replicate the tastes and experience of being at home on Earth. The snippets offered here are from the promotional download, available at the Springer website,

I don't yet have my own copy.  And Christmas is not far away ...........

Vostok space beer: from prehistory to space tourism. An interview with Dr Jason Held.

You might wonder why Dr Space Junk is interested in space beer? (A. She's an archaeologist.  Beer comes with the territory).  But seriously, what has beer got to do with space archaeology?

My interest in this was piqued for a number of reasons.  Firstly, nationalist symbols, and the achievement and claiming of "firsts" has been a major feature of space exploration from the start.  Australia did quite well in this sphere once, being the fourth nation to launch a satellite (WRESAT 1).  Since then our space industry has languished, although we may be heading for a renaissance, fingers crossed!  Producing the first space beer reflects the national obsession with this beverage, and so has some symbolic overtones, I believe. Secondly, as you will see,  Held contextualises the beer in a trajectory of social culture that I think is quite interesting as I am thinking along the same lines myself.

I think it also raises questions about the future complexion of existence in space.  What kinds of artefacts will distinguish the era of space tourism from the era of exploration?  I am reminded of a site I saw at Maralinga in outback South Australia, where legendary surveyor Len Beadell and his team left behind a scatter of beer cans (as they were in those days) with tins of spam and tobacco as evidence of their survey in the desert.  I don't think we are going to see beer bottles littering orbital space, as they won't be in glass, which is too heavy for a start.  (Damn!  I forgot to ask Jason how it would be packaged).  But I wonder how the material culture will differ, and how the terrestrial accoutrements of tourism will be transformed in the space context.

Anyway, here is Jason to tell the story.

DrSJ: Where did the inspiration for the project to develop a space beer come from?

JH:  Several of us are avid homebrewers at Saber Astronautics, both in the US and in Australia, so this is also a chance for us to combine two arenas we love very much.  But the original idea for space beer came out of an internal discussion on space logistics needs for tourism.  Tourism by its nature is geared towards commerce and entertainment, rather than exploration, so the demands emerge from the people who go up, rather than decided top-down by a government body.  

For the beer itself, the usual approach was to study brewing in space, with the goal of bringing beer down to Earth, but logistically this isn't cost effective.  At least, not if you wish to be mass market.  It makes more sense to brew on Earth, and send the beer up, as the largest market is here.  Since there are physical issues with drinking beer in space (carbonation, flavor, etc), we realized that there was an opportunity not just to support the space tourism industry, but fellow beer lovers as well.  Consider the history of the India Pale Ale, the thought of making the world's first space beer is really exciting for us-- it's a real contribution to making people happy for a long long time.

DrSJ: Cosmonauts are already known to have consumed vodka in space.  Why do you think future space tourists will demand beer? Is this worth pursuing, given the difficulties in dealing with carbonation and taste?

JH: Vodka certainly makes sense as a space alcohol-- with a few tweaks it's usable as a rocket fuel, so there's some fun thought experiments there.  But at the end of the day, people on Earth love beer, therefore people in space will also want beer.  Also we felt that beer is a bit safer, less flammable, less toxic to the astronauts/cosmonauts/tourists who simply may wish for a bit of taste of home.  

DrSJ: You were quoted as saying "Wherever humanity goes, beer is sure to follow".  Did you do much research into the history of beer as part of this project, and if so, what was the most relevant fact you discovered?  Are there past methods of beer manufacture that can inform this project?

JH: We did run into academic debates over the effects that alcohol has had on human society.  Some argue that beer is one of the key causes of human society, but I feel it's more of a correlation.  There's some evidence that we've evolved with beer as well, especially considering the genetic differences between people in metabolizing alcohol.  

Initially we took inspiration from the history of the India Pale Ale, but the quote comes from a personal desire to try beer recipes from ancient Egyptian and Sumerian cultures.  Unfortunately, my homebrewing skills aren't quite up to snuff there, but I'm hoping to convince our friends at the 4-Pines to give it a go.  

The 4-Pines Brewing Company follows German purity laws, and that's as far back in history as we're willing to go with the actual manufacturing.  Old brewers had very different problems to solve than we do-- astronauts can take vitamin supplements instead of drinking beer to help stave off scurvy. Beer might be good to help morale in long duration trips (i.e., Mars).  But for the recipe we're really looking at a unique class of problems which have no historical baseline. 

DrSJ: The new beer is called Vostok.  Why choose a Russian name for an Australian beer? Were there other names that you considered?

JH: This was in honor of Yuri Gagarin as the first person in space onboard the Vostok 1.  It's a name everyone in humanity should know.

DrSJ: What are the possible physiological risks of consuming beer in space, as opposed to other alcoholic drinks?

JH: Aside from issues of carbonation, I doubt there's much difference.  Formal studies in alcohol absorption in microgravity and other possible effects have not been done.  There are known issues of cabin pressure effects on alcohol absorption which we account for in the study.  There also may be interaction effects between medications and alcohol.  Part of the point of this study is to learn as much as we can before people start flying to space in larger numbers in 2012.

One difference might be in long duration storage.  Since beer contains live organisms ("yeast samples in solution"), there may be changes in shelf life in microgravity. 

DrSJ:  You've already done some tests on the beer in the Queensland University of Technology drop tower, which creates microgravity for a few seconds.  What were the results?  Would you have been able to initiate the project without the drop tower, which was only completed recently? 

JH: I'll be able to answer more about the QUT Drop Tower in a week or two.

DrSJ: In the recent media coverage, was there anything omitted that you would like to talk about now?

JH: We often think of astronauts/cosmonauts as being examples of human perfection, and are quick to judge at the suggestion of them having a tipple.  After all - think of what these fine people had to do just to get in to a space program in the first place...  They are subjected to harsh conditions and workloads and still must meet the expectations we place on them.  What we have to realize is that they are at a base level very human, and having a beer is very much a part of that.  

And here's the point - NASA is right to be conservative, since alcohol can be abused, and the body's limits in space are not known.  So this research is not just to make a beer to enjoy, but also to learn how people's drinking limits change in microgravity.  Knowing these limits is the only responsible way to allow explorers to drink under any condition.  Because if anyone deserves a good beer, it's them.

DrSJ: When you have mastered the principles of gaseous drinks in space, is there any chance you will move on to champagne? 

JH:  Champagne is a tough one because everybody wants those big, distinctive bubbles.  Beer has a bit more "wiggle-room" on the recipe.  

You don't have to be a space tourist;  Vostok beer (it's a stout) is already available on Earth!  Many thanks to Jason for his insightful answers.

Australia contributes beer to international space culture

Australia doesn't even have a space program but a partnership between space engineers and a Sydney brewery aims to make damn sure we won't be beaten to the first space-certified beer (Moses 2010).

Now it's not quite true that we don't have a space programme - we had a ripper one some time ago, and with the new Space Policy Unit, and funding for space research in Australia, we might be able to do something in this line again.  Still, point taken.  Now for the beer.

I have heard, and I believe there are some studies which show this, that altitude affects the sense of taste.  This is why airline food is always so uniformly awful.  A problem, you might imagine, exacerbated a thousandfold in space.  Fine for astronauts who are trained for space conditions, but not so much for your affluent space tourist expecting a bit of luxury.  Or even something a bit normal.

So Saber Astronautics Australia and the Manly-based 4 Pines Brewing Company have formed a joint venture, Vostok, to develop a microgravity beer.

"Humanity has had beer longer than we've had writing so, wherever humanity goes, beer is going to follow," Saber director Jason Held said.  "So if we're to go into space we need to understand how the human body responds to alcohol. It's very difficult to drink beer in zero gravity because you have a reduced sense of flavour and anything carbonated is going to have a hard time because gases respond differently in space than they do on Earth." (Quoted in Moses 2010)

He's right about the antiquity of beer.  It's not really my area, but I do know that beer was consumed like water by the ancient Egyptians, and also by the Tudors.  This was extremely weak beer, and there are some arguments that it prevented people from catching diseases from contaminated water.  However, apart from the ostensible goal of producing a microgravity beer which tastes nice, there may be many other spinoffs in terms of understanding physiology and food in space that could be quite interesting.  If only they weren't starting with a stout - not my favourite at the best of times.

References

Moses, Asher  2010  Beam me up Shhhcotty ..... the Aussie space beer with zero gravity.  Sydney Morning Herald October 1 http://www.smh.com.au/technology/sci-tech/beam-me-up-shhhcotty--the-aussie-space-beer-with-zero-gravity-20101001-15zzh.html.  Viewed October 1 2010

Rocket parties

Today I am writing a lecture on how open pit mines work (from a heritage management perspective). Tragically, I find this stuff really interesting - I remember, while excavating once on a Hunter Valley coal mine, one of the drillers got a bit enthusiastic about having a number of young female people around and asked us to visit his rig, quite illegal of course. I was far more interested in watching the drill bit than being chatted up, I fear!

However, there is only so much discussion of stripping ratios and NVPs that a person can take in one go, so I am distracting myself with more rocket cakes. Rocket (and satellite) cakes have become a much larger theme on this blog than I imagined was possible, but when confronted with stunning creativity, there is nothing to do but acknowledge it. So here is the rocket cake that the very creative Karen Cheng made for her son's third birthday party, and some lovely toilet-roll rockets.

Rocket cakes rock

My culinary boffin friend Kaylene sent me this wonderful rocket cake website:


http://www.vatsaas.org/rtv/misc/cakes/rocketsoncakes.aspx

All kinds of inspiring rocket cakes here. This picture is a taste: cutting the cake at the first anniversary of the Redstone Arsenal.

A rocket cake to be proud of!

This gorgeous rocket cake was made by my friend Kaylene for her son Reid's fifth birthday. I am sure it tasted as wonderful as it looks.

Sputnik apples

Yesterday I gave a lecture about Woomera to the University of the Third Age - a volunteer-run organisation aimed at retirees. There were quite a few people in the audience who had connections to Woomera of one kind or another. But the bit I liked most was the story of the Sputnik apples. To celebrate the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, one now-retired gentleman and his work colleagues stuck toothpicks into apples in Sputnik's antenna configuration and hung lots of them from the ceiling by string.

Bamboo skewers may have been a little more to scale but they are not such easy things to find in an office. A spray of silver paint would have been marvellous too (I'm getting ideas, you see, on the space party theme .... )

The literature, and my own discussions with people, suggest that in Australia the reaction to Sputnik 1 was very different to that in the USA. It was not perceived as a threat, it did not cause a national crisis of confidence. (Although it should be noted that not all scholars agree that that was the general reaction in the US). Instead, people found it interesting and exciting.

The genesis of Dr Space Junk

Someone asked me a while ago where Dr Space Junk and the Love Pygmy came from. A friend of my sister's (AJ, I think) came up with the name, and I subsequently used a character called Dr Space Junk in a couple of privately circulated stories. Dr Space Junk and her friend Dr Giggi Ignom are evil doctors who believe that the earth's populace exhibits such poor taste in general that it requires radical intervention. Aboard the Love Pygmy, they travel the solar system, stopping as often as possible to partake of civilised morning and afternoon tea (now it occurs to me there has been a longstanding association with cakes), and occasionally exerting themselves to suppress outbreaks of trash culture. (Although it must be said that they do not always agree on what these are).

Dr Giggi Ignom is the alter ego of a real person, but I shall not reveal who at this juncture.

How Dr Space Junk's spacecraft acquired the name of Love Pygmy is a whole other story.

Sputnik cakes endorsed by Nicey

Nicey did like Dr Lynley Wallis' special sputnik cakes. Here is what he says on his fabulous website:

"Its always good to hear from NCOTAASD's favourite space archaeologist. We too were excited about the 50th anniversary of Sputnik, which for good reason is the artificial satellite that I most often think of. Despite all the hundreds of other ones up there routing our phone calls, guiding our transport and keeping an eye on the weather, Sputnik is the only one with its own vegetable. The Kohl-Rabis that turn up in our weekly delivered veggi-box are the spit of it, and very nice in a stir fry it is. 

I'm impressed that each cake seems to be unique in its design and colour scheme and I note that Dr Wallis didn't spare the food colouring. I hope this didn't render all your students hyper-active with attention deficit issues. Granted the latter is always difficult to diagnose in students although working in such a stimulating field I'm sure you don't suffer from such things".

I had to think a bit about the kohlrabis. The cakes were the least of our worries at the masterclass, as we had provided suitable beverages appropriate to any archaeological discussion.

Is any serious research going on here at the moment? I don't care as long as I remain NCOTAASD's favourite space archaeologist.

Sputnik cakes

Last Thursday was Sputnik's 50th birthday. My esteemed colleague Dr Lynley Wallis demonstrated the depth of her friendship and her love of space hardware by making a batch of special sputnik cakes, that were consumed by participants at our cultural heritage masterclass that afternoon.

It turns out it's not so easy to make pictures of rockets and satellites with stupid kiddie icing tubes and chocolate sprinkles. My esteemed colleague was most incensed when I opined that her home-made rocket stencil looked more like a turtle than a V2, and there was a free-hand star that resembled a dog .... however recognising that my access to cake was being put at risk by this somewhat negative commentary, I refrained and assisted her in making lopsided moons and sputnik shapes that looked like sea urchins on a bad hair day.

Kelly Wiltshire took a spifflicatingly good photo (see right). They were most splendid cakes and I think that Nicey (from A Nice Cup of Tea and A Sit Down) would have approved.

Space biscuits and recognition for space archaeology

Sometimes the constant struggle to gain recognition for the cultural significance of space heritage can get a girl down. I was feeling rather depressed about life in general when I received an accolade that has made it all worthwhile. The utterly charming Nicey from A Nice Cup Of Tea And A Sit Down, the web's premier site for tea, biscuits, cake and sit downs, has declared that I am their favourite space archaeologist. It has made me happy for the last two days.

Nicey is very interested in space biscuits, as I may have mentioned already in this blog. Below is his take on the news that the Japanese are developing a special biscuit for long-haul space travel.

Nice News: Space biscuits will taste of worms or something

Wednesday 30 Aug 2006
Reporter: Nicey and Dr Alice Gorman

NiceCupOfTeaAndASitDown's favourite space archaeologist Dr Alice Gorman has been in touch about Japanese plans for space biscuits. Masamichi Yamashita, a researcher with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has come up with recipe that uses all the things that your typical astronaut might have to hand on a five year long mission to Mars. Soybeans, rice and silkworm pupas are combined, all of which may be farmed in space. Apparently the pupas will need a quick stir frying to mask their fishy taste, before grinding them into a sort of powder which we are assured will taste almost like crab.

Yamashita presented his recipe during the 36th scientific assembly of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). The recipe comprises three to six grams of silkworm pupa powder, 200 grams of rice powder, 50 grams of soy powder and 300 cubic centimetres of soymilk, with soy sauce and salt.

I can't see McVitites beating a path to his door anytime soon. Mind you they could have a good future in that niche market for foods that you eat very late on a Friday night for a bet after you have been drinking heavily, traditionally occupied by Bombay Duck.