It's something scientists have been wondering about for years: Will bread yeast rise in the weightlessness of space? Every which way but up?
They're about to find out. Astronauts heading into space this weekend will score a culinary first by baking bread aboard the shuttle Endeavour.Betty Crocker would be proud.
The two tiny loaves promise to be the most wondrous of breads. But don't expect them to win any blue ribbons; ground tests with the equipment produced pale, spongy loaves.
That's beside the point.
"We're not making it to eat. We don't care about freshness," said Gerry Senechal, manager of the project for Canada's Spar Aerospace Limited. "We just want to see if the bread does rise and if it does how it looks."
Endeavour is scheduled to lift off on the bread-baking quest - or Spacelab mission to be more precise - at 10:23 a.m. Saturday. The countdown began Wednesday and was followed by the arrival of the seven-member crew, which includes the first married couple to fly in space, the first black female astronaut and the first Japanese citizen to fly on a U.S. spaceship.
One of the astronauts will activate the two bread-making chambers in a cargo bay canister by throwing a switch. Here's what should happen:
Water will be heated by battery to 104 degrees Fahrenheit and injected into a flour and yeast mixture. A small rotary motor will mix the dough for seven minutes; the dough then will be allowed to rise for a half-hour.
Each chamber will be cranked up to 302 degrees Fahrenheit. An hour later, the bread should be done and the ovens will shut off.
The recipe for each loaf calls for 1.13 ounce of white flour, 0.025 ounce of yeast and 0.64 ounce of water. There are no additives, no sugar or salt. There also are no exposed heating elements and thus no crust.
Each loaf will be 33/4 inches long and 11/2 inches in diameter.
"It's just to prove it works. It's not like it's supposed to feed a family," Senechal explained, laughing.
The chefs - Spar technicians who normally work on satellite components - settled on the final recipe after several trial runs in their Montreal laboratory.