They’ve sent all manner of foods to space, and even made pizza aboard the International Space Station. But salty snacks have been banned in orbit. Now, Frito-Lay has come to the rescue with new Cool Ranch Zero-Gravity Doritos!
The crew of the Space-X Polaris Dawn mission. One of their space firsts
will be ‘testing’ the new Doritos Cool Ranch Zero-Gravity chip…
Those whacky Doritos folks… Always coming up with new flavours and collaborations to promote the product. And getting really creative in the process! Their latest scheme has been to develop a zero-gravity-friendly Dorito for the folks who spend months in isolation aboard the International Space Station.
Not at all straightforward
The development project was anything but straightforward.
The Doritans started by consulting the official NASA guide to food suitable for space flight. It was developed for the NASA Deep Space Food Challenge that began in 2019. (And I’m proud to say a Canadian team won the contest!)
The guide sets nutritional and physical standards for space food, designed to meet special challenges: “It must be easy to package, fit into acceptable portion sizes, travel well and fit into storage compartments, store for long periods without spoiling, and be simple to prepare. Most importantly, the food must have an acceptable taste and not produce crumbs.”
Space foods must be nutrition-dense, balanced and light-weight. Most space foods are freeze-dried and packed in plastic pouches to which astronauts simply add water.
But there were no specific standards for snacks.
What they did
“The limitless possibilities of space inspired us to push the boundaries of what’s possible,” said Chris Bellinger, Chief Creative Officer of PepsiCo Foods North America. “This mission is a testament to our commitment to delivering bold experiences and flavors, even in the most unexpected places.”
To meet the stringent requirements for space flight, Pepsico techs developed a special one-bite chip. That was a crucial specification. One thing folks living in space environments absolutely can’t have is particulate foods. The single-bite design precludes the release of crumbs produced by chewing.
“Salt and pepper are also particulate,” you might point out. But they’re routinely supplied in the form of concentrates astronauts can add to other packaged foods.
Salt crystals on conventional snack chips could float free in zero-G and get into the equipment, causing malfunctions which would be hard to fix. And it might also get into the crew’s eyes, ears and noses. Yuk! Same with the conventional Cool Ranch sedasonings…
PepsiCo had to come up with a way to make the seasoning stick tight to the chip. I heard somewhere they’ve developed a way to ‘glaze’ them on – something like the coating on caramel corn…
Getting us all involved
The Cool Ranch Zero-Gravity Dortitos project also gets us Earth-bound ‘prisoners of gravity’ involved with a call for donations to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital network.
Donors have a chance to win special packs of the space chips, with glow-in-the-dark decorations.
Blasting off today!
Cool Ranch Zero-Gravity chips are set to launch today (August 26) at retail stores. They’ll go to space soon, aboard SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn mission later this month…
~ Maggie J.