Featured Image Credit: NASA / Flickr
Unless you're up on the movers and shakers at NASA, you might not have heard of Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore this time last year.
Still, after their eight-day mission to the International Space Station turned into 286 days, the pair have become international news.
Williams and Wilmore are finally back on Earth, and even though we're sure they just want to settle back into their 'normal' lines, the media and space fans alike are obsessed with dissecting everything about their time in the stars.
NASA and SpaceX finally rescued Williams and Wilmore from space on March 18, making a watery splashdown off the coast of Tallahassee.
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After being quickly stretchered away for thorough medical checks, they're now thrust into a 'brutal' 45-day rehab routine.
Alongside being obsessed with how astronauts go to the toilet in space, it seems we're gripped by what they eat while floating some 250 miles above us.
There were particular concerns about Williams' appearance when it looked like she'd lost a shocking amount of weight, although we're told that astronauts are on a strict diet that monitors their nutritional and calorific intake.
You might be surprised to learn that Williams and Wilmore tucked into Thanksgiving dinner and even pizza while aboard the ISS, but when it comes to their typical daily diet, you won't find a simple loaf of bread.
As NASA itself notes, there's a distinct lack of bread on the ISS.
Giving a rundown on the history of the space station's food, NASA writes: "Sandwiches were tried but proved less than ideal, as the bread didn’t stay very fresh and caused crumbs that would float away in the cabin and possibly cause harm to sensitive equipment or even get in the astronaut’s eyes or lungs."
As bread is one of the most consumed foods on the planet (beaten by rice), its place as a store cupboard staple means many astronauts must miss it while up in space.
There are some ways around this, and in 2016, UK astronaut Tim Peake enjoyed a bacon sandwich and a cup of tea courtesy of celebrity chef Heston Blumenthal.
Given Blumenthal's typical kitchen wizardry, you'll be unsurprised to learn this wasn't your typical bacon sandwich. Removing the crusts and using a particularly dense bread to get around the crumbs problem, Peake's version also came packed into a can.
Astronauts have other ingenious ways to avoid crumbs clogging crucial systems or jabbing them in the eye.
Mexican Payload Specialist Rodolfo Neri Vela requested tortillas as part of his food supply in 1985, and with them not suffering the same crumb problem as bread, they've become a firm favorite of astronauts. As well as making breakfast burritos and peanut butter and jelly sandwich alternatives, US astronaut Terry Virts showed off his 'space cheeseburger' in 2015 by layering a tortilla wrap with a beef patty, cheese, tomato paste, and Russian mustard.
While NASA, SpaceX, and the rest continue to innovate with food in space, we'd say we're still a long way from having a typical BLT for your lunch on the ISS.
