• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Space Munchies Blast Off for Station

Posted on: Friday, 24 December 2004, 15:00 CST

MOSCOW -- A Russian cargo ship blasted off early Thursday carrying badly needed food and equipment for the international space station, where supplies for the American and Russian crew have dwindled to critical levels.

The Progress M-51 took off from the remote Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 1:19 a.m. (Moscow time) with about 2.5 tons of food, fuel and research equipment for Russian cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov and U.S. astronaut Leroy Chiao, ITAR-Tass and Interfax news agencies said. It was scheduled to arrive Sunday morning.

Russian and American space officials were alarmed earlier this month to learn that Sharipov and Chiao, in their second month at the station, had gone through much of their food. There was food to last seven to 14 days beyond Dec. 25 if the supply ship did not arrive.

The crew has been ordered to cut back on meals. A Russian Space Agency spokesman has said the two could be forced to return to Earth if the Progress does not reach the station.

Chiao and Sharipov, who have been aboard the station since October, have been eating more sweets and candy than usual in order to make up for the lack of food. Both men, who are required to exercise about two hours a day, have lost five to 10 pounds during the past month.

"We're doing all right," Chiao said in an interview broadcast live on NASA Television yesterday. "The fact is, I would estimate we're eating about half the amount of real food that we would normally eat. It's not an ideal diet, but certainly one we've done for a month and can continue as long as we need to."

An independent team was looking into how the orbiting station's food inventory ended up being tracked so poorly and how it can be improved in the future.

Contributing: Bloomberg News Service.

Source: Deseret News (Salt Lake City)

More News in this Category