Astronauts bake first cookies in space in three hours

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Astronauts bake first cookies in space in three hours
Astronauts bake first cookies in space in three hours

New Delhi : The International Space Station (ISS) are believed to have baked the first ever cookies in the space, but the cooking time is much higher than what it is on the Earth.

The space station's Italian commander Luca Parmitano acted as baker aided by NASA astronaut Christina Koch for the chocolate-chip cookie experiment.

On the earth, one can bake cookies in 15-20 minutes but when the astronauts tried it in the space it took them nearly three hours to get the perfectly baked cookies. The first and second cookies were in the oven for 25 minutes and 75 minutes but were still under-baked.

The best results came from 120 and 130 minutes in the oven.

"We made space cookies and milk for Santa this year," Koch tweeted. 



The prototype oven which can be used in the microgravity has been designed and built by Nanoracks and Zero G Kitchen. The dough for the cookies was supplied by Hilton hotel chain 

"The ISS smelled like fresh chocolate chip cookies when @astro_luca opened the oven door! Just like home!" Nanoracks tweeted.

"While we have initial visual and scent feedback from the crew aboard the ISS, we're excited to dive into fully understanding the baking results - including breaking down why the bake time and temperature in space varies from what we are used to seeing on Earth," Mary Murphy, a Nanoracks payloads manager, said in a statement from Hilton.

None of the astronauts have tasted the cookies as they will be first tested on earth to understand if they are edible or not. 

Three of the cookies returned to Earth on the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft on January 7 and will undergo testing by food scientists to determine if they are edible.

"Currently on the International Space Station there's really a limited ability to prepare foods in ways that we're used to," Zero G Kitchen founder Ian Fichtenbaum said in a video posted by Hilton.

"And now as longer duration space flight is more common you want to focus on making space more comfortable," added co-founder Jordana Fichtenbaum.