Sweet Designs Chocolate is literally out of this world!
Did you know that Sweet Designs Chocolate went to outer space? In 1997, solid chocolates wrapped in red foil were stowed in the Columbia Space Shuttle for mission STS-94, which tested some of the hardware, facilities and procedures to be used on the International Space Station. Scientists aboard also conducted combustion experiments to learn how fire behaves in space.Image courtesy of NASA
The combustion experiments resulted in the discovery of a new mechanism of flame extinction caused by radiation of soot, the ignition of the weakest flames (as low as one watt, or 1/50 the power of a birthday candle) ever burned in laboratory conditions in space or on Earth, as well as the longest burning flames in space (500 seconds). Although only 144 fires or combustion experiment runs were scheduled, more than 200 were completed.
The astronauts aboard unwrapped and enjoyed their Sweet Designs Chocolate as a celebration after completing their first successful orbit! Astronauts are required to eat a balanced diet of carefully selected foods to maintain their health in space, but they’re allowed to augment their diets with “bonus containers” filled with the snacks of their choice. “We get requests for chocolates on pretty much every flight,” noted Vickie Kloeris, manager of the Space Food Systems Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.
If you have ever visited Sweet Designs, you may have noticed the large black frame on the wall behind the register - you can see the actual foil wrappers that were in space during the Columbia mission as well as autographs from the astronauts themselves. Roger Crouch wrote, "To our friends at Sweet Designs...an out-of-this-world chocolate place."
Sources: NASA, Smithsonian Magazine
The astronauts aboard unwrapped and enjoyed their Sweet Designs Chocolate as a celebration after completing their first successful orbit! Astronauts are required to eat a balanced diet of carefully selected foods to maintain their health in space, but they’re allowed to augment their diets with “bonus containers” filled with the snacks of their choice. “We get requests for chocolates on pretty much every flight,” noted Vickie Kloeris, manager of the Space Food Systems Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX.If you have ever visited Sweet Designs, you may have noticed the large black frame on the wall behind the register - you can see the actual foil wrappers that were in space during the Columbia mission as well as autographs from the astronauts themselves. Roger Crouch wrote, "To our friends at Sweet Designs...an out-of-this-world chocolate place."
Sources: NASA, Smithsonian Magazine