The responsibility of concocting the US astronauts’ meals falls on the shoulders of NASA Space Food Systems Laboratory (SFSL). Their mission is to “…provide high-quality flight food systems that are convenient, compatible with each crew member’s physiological and psychological requirements, meet spacecraft stowage and galley interface requirements, and are easy to prepare and eat in the weightlessness of space.” Those necessities are strict confines in the composition of a spacefarer’s diet yet another factor comes into play–the degradation of the sense of taste in weightlessness.

Foods tastes bland and flavorless; even astronauts who admit to not enjoying spicy foods and finding themselves reaching for the bottle of hot sauce. A few days into a mission, Astronauts lose their sense of smell in space and food in general doesn’t taste quite on point. I can’t figure out why exactly astronauts lose their sense of smell, but I can only imagine fluids in your body get all messed up when you’re floating delicately in space. To compensate for this sensation, the Food Systems Lab has prepared a slue of spicy, flavor packed foods. They have even called in Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse, and Rachel Ray to created meals for lift off.

Generally, eating in space seems quite fun. It’s a lot easier to play with your food in the weightlessness. It does seem a little harder to start a food fight, though.

Price Peterson‘s Astronaut series is a clash between Stuart Little and King of the Hill that perfectly rolls into a charming portrait of an Americana astronaut. Peterson’s astronauts (#1-3) take flight and get a ‘buzz’ in a method that is more conventional to a gravity controlled figures such as ourselves.

Bill Finger’s Ground Control, a work-in-progress photograph series of miniature dioramas, explores the themes of braving the journey to the last frontier and humanizing the effort of placing boots on Martian soil. The series came out of Finger’s fascination of the idea that travelling to Mars would be a one-way trip. A sacrifice of earthly existence and all previous known ways of life. The next humans to venture outward will need to be someone bold and unlike any that have previously wandered outside of our stratosphere. The space colonizer cast in Finger’s constructed scenes have the desire to make the mystical trip but with no specific skills to allow him/her to do so. But someone has to do it.

President Kennedy & President Johnson are fondly remembered for their contributions to the US Space Program; they each have a respective NASA Center named in their honor. Nobel Laureate Jimmy Carter is not similarly remembered, although as a vocal activist for global peace and democracy, he looks quite appropriate suited up and ready to forge the last frontier. Here Carter is immortalized in shades of blue and grey.

In this rendition, his blue eyes are clear and piercing. Instantaneously they reminded me of The Blue Marble shot of the Earth taken by Apollo 17 in 1972 during Carter’s Presidential term. That photograph is one of the most distributed and celebrated images in history: the Planetary Institute presented a short on the ‘Overview Effect’ on the 40th Anniversary of describing the experience of seeing Earth from Space and its profound effect on conveying the interconnection of all life on Earth.

That blue and white swirling marble is a delicate place in the vast emptiness of the universe: here we need more individuals like President Carter advocating to make it a better place.

ps. I stumbled across this space faring Carter a while back–I am unable to locate and give credit to the creator. Dear Internet, do you know who created me?