Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Historically it was a little unusual for the president to be an incoherent babbling moron.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

I have other things to bitch about but those will have to wait.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

These days, even the boring Republicans are nuts.

Biden: Oh no. We’ve upset Big Pharma again.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

I did not have this on my fuck 2022 bingo card.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

He imagines himself as The Big Bad, Who Is Universally Feared… instead of The Big Jagoff, Who Is Universally Mocked.

When you’re a Republican, they let you do it.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

If marriage is the equivalent of selling yourself into slavery, women with self respect should reject the offer.

Second rate reporter says what?

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

The lights are all blinking red.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

I’d try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

You are here: Home / Food & Recipes / Food / Thursday Evening Open Thread: Mars Needs Epicurious!

Thursday Evening Open Thread: Mars Needs Epicurious!

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Sounds better than 3D printed pizza, anyways. Andy Isaacson, in the New Yorker, explains that “In Space, No One Can Hear Your Takeout Order”:

In April, six people entered a geodesic dome, just thirty-six feet in diameter, perched on the barren, reddish slopes of the Hawaiian volcano Mauna Loa. They will be there until August, simulating that they are living on Mars. Their mission: to eat.

While humans are decades away from potentially becoming an invasive species on Mars, it’s not too soon for NASA to think about how astronauts will feed themselves when they arrive. A question like “How much water is needed to make a beef tagine?” must be answered by engineers well in advance. Funded by NASA’s Human Research Program, the Hawaii Space Exploration Analog and Simulation’s four-month mission is to compare classic astronaut fare of pre-made, prepackaged meals to a new system that allows for combining a limited number of shelf-stable ingredients.

The crew of six terranauts, selected from a pool of seven hundred applicants, alternate between two days of prepackaged meals and two days of dome home cooking; chef duties are executed in pairs. The pantry has been stocked with ingredients like flax seeds, sourdough starter, anchovies, egg-white crystals, dried hijiki seaweed, and canned Spam—a nod to local cuisine, as well as Pacific U.S. military history. While the crew completed cooking classes at Cornell prior to entering the habitat, no member has professional culinary experience. They are relying on a cookbook and a mission-support group, which is available for twelve hours a day to hunt down online recipes and answer operational questions. (There is, however, a twenty-minute time delay between the dome and the support group, to simulate the communication gap with Mars.)….

Nifty discussion of the search for why astronauts lose weight* in space at the link.

*okay, smartarses — ‘mass’

In other sci-fi news, via Paul Constant, there’s a groundswell to name a park in Tacoma after Frank Herbert.

Apart from skiffy geek goodness, what’s on the agenda for the evening?

Reader Interactions

62Comments

  1. 1.

    YellowJournalism

    Terrible flooding here in Alberta from near Calgary on down. Hope there’s no Canadian BJers in that area.

  2. 2.

    Redshirt

    Anyone, besides me, visit the Biosphere? It’s awesome, despite whatever you’ve heard. And it could shelter/feed several dozen people on Mars.

    If you like cool engineering, check it out.

  4. 4.

    Redshirt

    I’ve also become fairly anti-Mars colony. I used to be gung ho. But what would be accomplished? I can understand a celebratory touchdown to prove we could do it if we want to, but colonizing Mars on the other hand is a losing proposition. Better to build space stations.

  6. 6.

    Keith

    Tony Bourdain did a show in Canada somewhere where he ate on a frozen lake in an ice fishing hut. He and his companions ate out of small jars, but the meals were high gourmet – some kind of rabbit blood/liver dish (that was also featured on an ep of Treme that he consults for), and various other amazing sounding dishes, often topped with shaved truffles. As they kept bringing out more and more jars, I was thinking “why aren’t astronauts hauling these up in space instead of glorified MREs?”

  7. 7.

    Yatsuno

    Mmm…at least it sounds like they can make musubi. Plus to really simulate the experience they should be recycling waste water.

    In other news, the NYD and I called it quits.

  10. 10.

    Keith

    Can’t update my post, but after searching, the rabbit dish is called Lièvre à la Royale.

  16. 16.

    Yatsuno

    @2liberal: New York Dawg, also known as my love life complication.

    @Anne Laurie: Grazie, although as far as partings go this one isn’t too bad. The door closed but didn’t lock.

  19. 19.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Yatsuno:

    also known as my love life complication

    I once described someone in similar terms. The she and I got married and divorced (I have compressed the timeline a little). Sounds like you managed to become single again without the legal mumbo jumbo. Condolences or hoorays, as appropriate.

  20. 20.

    piratedan

    @Redshirt: the thought is that you would have to seed Mars with specially crafted biotech in order to start building the gasses required to craft an atmosphere. Then load it up with some pollution (per se) to start a greenhouse effect to warm the planet up for stage three, manufactured microbes for terraforming. The advances in biotech and in handling our own environmental issues could take a huge leap forward with that kind of project.

  22. 22.

    Keith

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yep. Alain Ducasse features it at one of his restaurants as well (a slightly more elaborate version). Crazy Canadians made it in a freakin’ jar. Apparently, jar cooking is the new sous vide. And the interesting thing is, the guys (a pair of brothers) said they eat like that every day. Every anecdote I’ve heard from chefs is that they eat crap or comfort food at home, but these guys say they feast restaurant style every damn day!

  23. 23.

    JWL

    “No, no, not at all. You won’t be a guinea pig. You’ll be a terranaut”!

    “Well, OK, then. Sign me up”.

  25. 25.

    Yatsuno

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    Condolences or hoorays, as appropriate

    More condolence than hooray, but it helped that I knew it was coming. When he started law school prep I had an inkling that I’d have to let him go, temporarily if not permanently. Now that he’s off to New Haven he’ll be lucky if he has time to breathe, let alone keep up with me. I did make him promise to invite me to his graduation.

  35. 35.

    Mnemosyne

    @Yatsuno:

    Ugh. Long-distance relationships are really, really hard. Hopefully the future will be better for both of you, whatever it holds.

  36. 36.

    Yatsuno

    @piratedan: My grandparents used to run housing for international students. They would get pineapple Tang. You have not lived until you’ve had that shit.

  40. 40.

    Mnemosyne

    This story reminds me a bit of one of my favorite episodes of “From the Earth to the Moon” — “Galileo Was Right,” which has the Apollo 15 astronauts going through some basic geology training so they have a better idea of what to look for when they land on the surface of the Moon.

    In other news, I started developing a migraine right around 3:00 this afternoon, so I’m eating some soup for dinner and then heading to a dark room to lie down for a while. Ugh.

  43. 43.

    schrodinger's cat

    *okay, smartarses — ‘mass’

    Actually if go to the moon, you do lose weight since gravitational acceleration on the moon is 1/6 to that of the earth.

    Weight =mass * gravitational acceleration

  46. 46.

    Hal

    This day is so blah for me. I’ve decided the only thing worse than not having a job is having a job that pays shit. Nothing like working 50+ hours a week while trying to finish college just to barely pay your bills. I need the college degree for a real career and a shot at decent money, but damn if I’m not wishing hard for a lotto win, which of course will never happen. I spent a couple of hours earlier in the day googling shit like “why you shouldn’t give up on your dreams” to talk me back from the ledge. Why I couldn’t I have been born rich, or really attractive? At least I could make money as a stripper.

  51. 51.

    Yatsuno

    @Mnemosyne: International ones are even more entertaining. I don’t regret the Canuckistani at all, but yeah, that took a shit ton of communication. And that wasn’t his strongest suit.

    @schrodinger’s cat: It’s from the Middle East. I think the family that gave it to them was from Pakistan, but I’m not entirely sure now.

  52. 52.

    Diana

    @YellowJournalism: And I hope they don’t support drilling oil from the tar sands … because stuff like the Keystone pipeline is exactly what exacerbates climate change…

  53. 53.

    RSA

    In other sci-fi news, via Paul Constant, there’s a groundswell to name a park in Tacoma after Frank Herbert.

    Jeez, the main landscape feature in any desert calls to mind his signature work already…

  55. 55.

    Redshirt

    So here’s Redshirt’s 5 easy steps towards colonization of the stars:

    1. Build a self sustaining dome in the desert on Earth
    2. Build a self sustaining dome under at least 300 feet of water
    3. Build a self sustaining dome on the North/South pole of the Moon
    4. Build a self sustaining spaceship
    5. Profit

  56. 56.

    eemom

    @Yatsuno:

    Very sorry to hear about NYD. Seemed like you were into him a lot.

    Also too, makes me want to weep that anyone would give up something good for law school, ferfuxsake. Sheeyit, another five years and they’ll be selling us on the 99 cent rack at Walmart.

  57. 57.

    Yatsuno

    @eemom: Well…like I said, how permanent this is might be up in the air. I think he’s worrying over his work load too much. Plus he’s surprised me before.

  58. 58.

    ruemara

    Sitting in the broadcast booth for my last televised school board meeting and wishing my regulars well, if the budget decision next month goes as expected. Having had a spate of disappointing to devastating developments in the past 2 weeks, I’m just trying to keep myself amused and if not positive, less shut down. I looked at a lot of bunny and cat posts on buzzfeed. Did not really realize NN 2013 was in SJ. I’d go for a BJ meetup except for two obstacles: getting there and coming back. Everything else would be a go!

    @Yutsano :( relationships. Who knows how this will develop, but I hope things are ok with you now.

  61. 61.

    Lawrence

    I remember the press coverage of the Boisphere missions was derisive. One article, which I can not now find, reported that the ocean system failed because the scientists ate the lobster population to extinction (silly environmentalists). But the Arizona Republic wouldn’t print anything that wasn’t true, right? The Wikki entry does not mention that either, and reading it I was reminded that in science you can learn as much from failure as success. So, good luck to the dome dwellers. Maybe they can get a plug on Food Network.

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