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Ever had a freshly cooked steak, delivered
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straight from the International Space Station?
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Let me tell you — it's not
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going to be what you expect.
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You must have so many questions right now.
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Salad or mashed potatoes?
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It's not every day that a chunk of meat falls from the sky.
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Astronauts on the International Space Station
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have precautions in place to keep
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anything from dropping down to Earth.
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But at the same time, they have to deal with
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spacesuit gloves that only allow about
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20% of their gloveless range of motion.
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And sometimes, things do slip away.
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Astronauts have dropped everything
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from a camera to a spatula.
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They used that thing for space shuttle repairs and
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not for cooking, in case you're wondering.
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What if you got to go the ISS,
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and on your final spacewalk,
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a perfect cut of rib eye steak
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slipped through your hands,
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completely by accident?
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Before we get to the part where you're spacewalking
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with a piece of raw meat in your hands,
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we need to figure out how to
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get that meat there in the first place.
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The International Space Station has been
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continuously occupied since the end of the year 2000.
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But none of its visitors have been chefs.
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Astronauts have all their food precooked here on Earth.
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Their meals either come ready to eat,
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or can be easily prepared adding water
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or by heating.
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Anything that hadn't been approved
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six months before your launch
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would be prohibited.
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You would break about 20 food regulations
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by sneaking raw meat aboard the ISS,
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let alone by dropping that meat from orbit.
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There is a reason why dropping objects
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from the Space Station is a no-go,
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and requires astronauts to report
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such incidents immediately.
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But let me go back to it in a moment.
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The ISS is orbiting 400 km (248 mi) above the Earth.
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What do you say, we start the experiment
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with some closer-to-Earth cooking?
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As a side note, I'll eliminate
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some of the orbital effects from the story.
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For now.
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Let's imagine that the steak you dropped
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would head straight down to the ground.
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When an item, like a steak,
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is plummeting to Earth from space,
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it moves really fast.
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And because of that high speed,
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the air in front of it can't get out of the way fast enough.
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It gets compressed.
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And when air is compressed, its molecules
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move faster, releasing kinetic energy.
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Things get hotter.
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But would it get hot enough to fry the steak?
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Let's see.
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If you dropped the steak from a height of 70 km (43 mi),
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it would break the sound barrier.
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For about a minute, the air around it
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would heat up to 177 °C (350 °F).
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If you've ever cooked steak, you know that
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this time and temperature isn't quite enough
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to cook the meat all the way through.
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When the steak hits the ground,
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it would still be far from well-done.
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At 100 km (62 mi) up, your rib eye
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would be falling at twice the speed of sound for 90 seconds.
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That's enough to add a little cooked
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crispness to its surface.
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Unfortunately, you'd still be eating raw steak,
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thanks to the sub-zero temperatures
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of the Earth's stratosphere.
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Dropping a steak down from
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250 km (155 mi) above Earth
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would get it that lovely seared surface.
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The falling meat would travel at
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six times the speed of sound,
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although it would still end up raw on the inside.
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If the steak fell from even higher above the atmosphere,
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its front shockwave would have temperatures
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reaching thousands of degrees.
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The meat's surface layer would start to burn off,
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looking more like flakes of carbon
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rather than a nice, medium-rare steak.
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But even dropping the steak from the ISS
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wouldn't give it enough time to cook through.
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You'd be eating a burned lump of protein
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that's raw red in the center.
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On Earth, it actually takes some
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degree of talent to cook a steak like that,
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if you take away the burning part.
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Space makes for a horrible barbecue
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unless you prefer your steak raw
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with an ashy aftertaste.
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You'd also have to wait quite some time
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for a steak to reach your plate.
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If the ISS itself were to fall from space,
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it would take 2.5 years due to the orbit it's in.
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Exactly how long it would take a steak to free fall
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from a height of 400 km (248 mi) is uncertain.
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In reality, if we turn the orbital forces back on,
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your steak wouldn't actually make it to Earth.
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Your potential dinner would go into orbit first.
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Then, roughly 90 minutes later,
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it would be flying right back at the ISS
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at a speed of roughly 28,000 km/h (17,500 mph).
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It might not hit the ISS, but
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if it did, you'd know it right away.
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Red meat is bad enough for you on Earth, but
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in space, it has the potential
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to wipe out an entire crew.
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If you're still up for the experiment,
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at least remember to sterilize the meat
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before you seal it in a pouch.
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And don't take cabbage, beans
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or broccoli for a side dish.
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Those foods make astronauts fart.
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And that's never a good thing in close quarters.
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The only escape from that stinky situation
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would be taking a walk in outer space,
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maybe, with no spacesuit at all.
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But that's a story for another WHAT IF.