Vickie Kloeris ’78 grew up in Texas City and got here to Aggieland leaning towards a profession in medication. While registering for her closing semester as a microbiology main, she was brief one elective hour to graduate. Against recommendation to take a neater class, she registered for a four-hour meals microbiology course within the Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Department of Food Science and Technology.
That elective class modified all the pieces. It opened her eyes to how microbiology might be utilized to meals science. She adopted that zeal to the place it led: a grasp’s in meals science, analysis within the Kleberg Animal and Food Sciences Center’s seafood expertise lab and, finally, NASA’s Johnson Space Center, the place she spent her profession defining what astronauts eat.
We caught up with the Aggie whose path took her from a meals science expertise lab in Aggieland to an out-of-this-world 34 yr profession as a NASA meals scientist.
How did taking a meals science elective flip right into a profession at NASA?
After my grasp’s, I stayed a yr on a funded mission on campus. At the tip of that yr, I married and moved to Galveston the place my husband was a resident in household medication. I spent the subsequent two years doing cell tradition analysis work in a lab on the University of Texas Medical Branch.
When his residency ended, I acquired my first meals science job at a hospital in Houston managing meals high quality and security of their cook-chill meals plant that produced meals for 5 space hospitals.
I started attending the native conferences of the Institute of Food Technologists, IFT, and met meals scientists from NASA’s Johnson Space Center. I used to be intrigued in regards to the utility of meals science to the house program, and I informed them to name if a place opened. About two years later, they did. I joined the Johnson Space Center meals lab in 1985 as a contractor, and in 1989 turned a civil servant, managing the Space Shuttle meals program.
What would shock folks about meals in house?
A: The selection. The International Space Station menu contains almost 200 meals and drinks. Every merchandise is shelf-stable as a result of there are not any fridges or freezers for meals. Early design work confirmed the facility on the station was wanted to help analysis freezers, not meals storage, so the menu needed to succeed with out refrigeration. That constraint formed all the pieces from packaging to preparation.
How did the meals program evolve throughout your time on the job?
At first, we relied on business gadgets and army rations, which had been excessive in sodium. That was fantastic on brief shuttle flights, however for missions lasting months, excessive sodium raised issues for bone loss, which happens in microgravity and may be made worse by a excessive salt weight-reduction plan. We shifted from deciding on off-the-shelf merchandise to growing our personal thermostabilized and freeze-dried meals with much less salt that also tasted acquainted.
That pivot moved us into true product growth. It turned essentially the most fascinating a part of my work as a result of we had been inventing options for a spot with no kitchen and little or no energy, then seeing crews benefit from the outcomes.
What had been some crew favorites that earned a everlasting spot?
Freeze-dried shrimp cocktail with a tomato-based sauce that contained horseradish. Fluid shifts in early flight could make folks really feel congested, and that horseradish kick reduce by means of it. I keep in mind Peggy Whitson didn’t just like the dish, however all the time packed it to commerce as a result of different crewmates beloved it.
For dessert, a thermostabilized cherry blueberry cobbler in a pouch turned an early hit. Long stays wanted heat desserts to assist enhance morale. Crews may style the crust even when it was not oven crisp. Originally, we produced it just for the lengthy length ISS crews, however shuttle crews wished it too, so we scaled up quicker than deliberate.
You lived inside a sealed habitat for 91 days. What did that take a look at contain?
Johnson Space Center ran a sequence of chamber research to check air and water recycling for house station life. Earlier crews did 15, 30 and 60 days whereas my workforce equipped flight meals. For the ultimate run, the middle deliberate a 90-day take a look at with a handover between two four-person crews to imitate how station crews overlap. They wanted a science officer, so I volunteered.
Partway in, the middle director determined to set a brand new closed-chamber file. The Apollo-era mark was 90 days, so our single crew stayed 91 days. We ran about 13 research, logged what we ate, examined strategies for weight-reduction plan information and sampled surfaces to trace how contamination constructed up in a closed house.
We additionally helped develop train protocols for lengthy missions. The chamber had a treadmill and an train bike. Physiologists monitored our information to tune cardio and resistive work to the proper ranges.
All air and water had been recycled, together with purified ingesting water that returned a couple of days after it left the crew. The better part? Two of my crewmates had been fellow Aggies.
What is your most memorable story out of your time at NASA?
Our meals lab usually hosted guests. We would pause the day’s work, arrange tastings and stroll visitors by means of how crews eat in orbit. One morning, the guests had been the “Apollo 13” movie workforce. We hosted an area meals breakfast for Tom Hanks, Ron Howard, who introduced considered one of his daughters and Jim Lovell, together with two present astronauts. Lovell mentioned the meal was nice, which made the astronauts smile as a result of they knew how far the meals had come for the reason that Apollo period.
Tom Hanks stepped up, put a foot on the desk and identified he was carrying his Forrest Gump tennis sneakers. We generally grumbled about occasions like that pulling us from our work, however it was enjoyable to open the lab and present what house meals seem like in actual life.
Tell us about your e-book, ‘Space Bites.’
I wished to honor my first boss at NASA and present college students that meals science is an actual, tangible profession path. People usually assume NASA is barely astronauts and engineers, however it takes many sorts of expertise to run a mission.
All earnings from my e-book help meals science scholarships at Texas A&M University and by means of the Institute of Food Technologists. I additionally serve on the Department of Food Science and Technology’s advisory committee and go to campus usually.
The e-book has given me the chance to talk with college students about methods to get began. I level them to labs that join class to actual issues, native sections of the Institute of Food Technologists, and internships the place they’ll see security, processing and sensory work up shut. It is a pleasure to satisfy the subsequent era who will carry the sector ahead.
