Italy is well-known to world travelers for its culinary expertise, and that skill is now being added to the country’s many contributions to space exploration on the Axiom 3 mission.
Additionally, Italy is also bringing many other essential technologies to the table in the expanding realm of commercial space flight.
Italy Has Long Been a Major Player in Space Exploration
You may not realize it, but Italy has been a leader in the innovative technology necessary to explore space ever since it launched the first all-Italian built satellite, San Marco 1 in December 1964. With this program, Italy became the third country (after the Soviet Union and United States) to operate a launch with its own crew. In total 5 satellites were launched during the program, all using American Scout rockets. The first flew from Wallops Flight Facility with the rest conducted from the San Marco Equatorial Range.
True, Italy quite simply lacks the enormous capital to have initiated massive programs such as Apollo or the Space Shuttle. But by the time that Werner von Braun was working on his V2 rocket, Italian astronautics pioneers such as Luigi Broglio (referred to as the”Italian von Braun”) were well along developing the theory and technology to support space exploration.
As one of the earliest countries to be engaged in space exploration, Italy became a founder and key partner in the European Launcher Development Organization (ELDO) and the European Space Research Organization (ESRO), both established in 1962 and both later merged to form the European Space Agency (ESA) in 1975.
Italy was one of the most active countries to support the design and construction of the International Space Station (ISS). Italy and Germany spearheaded a European Space Agency (ESA) program named Columbus that included construction of a module of the same name which would be attached to the American module Freedom, thus providing ESA with a full-fledged European orbital outpost before the end of the century. The other ESA-built modules – Harmony, Tranquillity, the Leonardo MPLM, and the Cupola – were initially manufactured at the Thales Alenia Space factory in Turin, Italy.
Italian Companies Will Play An Integral Part in The Burgeoning Commercial Space Station Business
One of the private companies considered by many to be in the lead to produce a commercial space station, Axiom Space, has sourced construction of the station modules to the Turin, Italy, firm Thales Alenia, where welding and machining has already begun for the primary structures of Axiom Station’s first module for launch in 2026.
Italian Technology In Spacesuit Development
Spacewear is an Italian company designing an innovative spacesuit for Axiom astronauts; while meeting strictest safety standards, its Smart Flight Suit 1 will provide complete ergonomic comfort thanks to a new construction system, new pocket systems and wearable monitoring of the biomedical functions of the astronauts.
Italian Science on The ISS
Italian Air Force Colonel Walter Villadei is one of four European Axiom astronauts aboard Axiom-3 launched from Kennedy Space Center on January 18, 2024. The 16 day mission to the ISS is currently in progress, where astronauts are acclimating themselves to life aboard a space station and keeping busy working on about thirty experiments. Fourteen of the thirty experiments were provided by Italian companies and educational organizations, and they range from study of proteins implicated in neurodegenerative diseases (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease), to the spacesuit sensors to monitor astronaut health status.
Food an Important Element of Life Aboard the ISS
Food flown on-orbit is not only required to be nutritious, but it must also be appetizing. The NASA Space Food Systems team is required to meet the nutritional needs of each crew member while adhering to the requirements of food safety, limited storage space, limited preparation options, and the difficulties of eating in microgravity. Food plays a critical social and psychological role during an astronaut’s stay on the ISS. Crew members have the opportunity to supplement a few of their standard menu choices with commercial off-the-shelf items or personal favorites which provide them comfort while away from home.
Italian astronauts, for example, bring their own food preferences.
In May 2015, Italian astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti became the first person to drink freshly brewed coffee in space. Commercial firms Lavazza and Argotec developed an Espresso machine, called ISSpresso, for the ISS. It can also brew other hot drinks, such as tea, hot chocolate, and broth. While the device serves as a quality-of-life improvement aboard the station, it is also an experiment in fluid dynamics in space. The brewing machine and drinking cups were specially designed to work with fluids in low gravity.
Now on the Axiom-3 Mission, Walter Villadei will be introducing his fellow space travelers to that Italian staple, pasta! One of the Italian investigations abroad Axiom-3 is called “Ready Pasta Heat and Taste in Microgravity.” With menus prepared for the occasion by the Giovanni Rana Company with products created ad hoc by Barilla, ready-made pasta will be heated and taste-tested in microgravity as part of an effort to develop a broader range of tasty foods in space for future space travelers.
Boiling pasta in microgravity is impossible. The fusilli pasta Rana will be sending into space is therefore already cooked and ready to be heated and enjoyed. Barilla’s R&D team has worked to ensure that the recipe in all its simplicity, pasta, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, represents the experience of Italian goodness and guarantees that it can remain al dente even before the countdown.
Frankly, I would have expected something a little more complex (such as Alfredo or bechamel over Fettuccine or Tortellini), but who am I to question Giovanni Rana?
