The astronauts from the International Space Station or ISS are experiencing cooking in space. They have used an oven to bake five chocolate chip cookies and to see how much time it will take and what will be the result. After doing the test, it resulted that baking in space is taking much more time than on Earth. We are talking about a big difference in the cooking time between Earth and Space, from twenty minutes to two hours.
The Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano was behind the cookie experiment. This is practically the first experiment of this type in space and on the board of ISS.
The oven for baking the cookie was designed by the American company called Nanoracks, and the dough came from the Hilton DoubleTree hotels. The team that built the stove had a hunch that the baking process will be different from Earth, but the results have impressed them.
ISS Astronauts Baked Cookies for the First Time
However, even if the process is taking two hours to have some cookies, everyone is happy about the result. Also, they will keep analyzing the data for a better understanding of why the baking is taking so long in space. The baking tray from the oven was realized, especially for microgravity conditions, so the questions are many.
Furthermore, Parmitano had to bake five chocolate chip cookies, sent in a frozen state, and the baking was realized separately for each one. In December was the first time the experiment began, and the cookie went in the oven for 25 minutes at 149 degrees. After that, Parmitano changed the time for the next two cookies, doubling the baking time.
The result was better but no great, having two under-baked cookies. The fourth cookie stayed in the oven for two hours, while the fifth stayed for 130 minutes at 163 degrees. Finally, the cookies are back on Earth by now and are in a frozen state in a laboratory in Houston.
