Pancakes on the moon
August 26, 2023 3:39 AM Subscribe
What would be the logistics of making pancakes on the moon?
My three year old has a recurring character (basically a Mary Sue, that is, a herself analogue) that has bed time story adventures. She's also fascinated by all things space.
In one of these stories "Mary" goes to the moon and makes pancakes.
We revisit these stories over and over again so I'd love to think through what it would be like to make pancakes on the moon: would the gravity difference make it tricky? What kind of moon base are we talking about? Supply chains? I'm thinking electric hotplate? How would the bubbles form in the batter, would it be like on Earth? If a burn happened, what about running water for first aid? (Yes, this is a social story processing her little sister grabbing the hot pan 🤦)
Obviously in a story I can make anything happen but realism is a plus.
My three year old has a recurring character (basically a Mary Sue, that is, a herself analogue) that has bed time story adventures. She's also fascinated by all things space.
In one of these stories "Mary" goes to the moon and makes pancakes.
We revisit these stories over and over again so I'd love to think through what it would be like to make pancakes on the moon: would the gravity difference make it tricky? What kind of moon base are we talking about? Supply chains? I'm thinking electric hotplate? How would the bubbles form in the batter, would it be like on Earth? If a burn happened, what about running water for first aid? (Yes, this is a social story processing her little sister grabbing the hot pan 🤦)
Obviously in a story I can make anything happen but realism is a plus.
I'd think it's unlikely habitat pressure would be kept at earth sea level and there for ingredient adjustments would have to be made as if one was at high altitude. Basically less leavening agent and more liquid.
Good chance the water would be distilled (vacuum distillation very cheap) in which case companies might sell mineral additives to give it some taste back.
Despite the expense of boosting iron (maybe there is a source on the moon? A meteor crater?) I'd think cooking would be in cast iron with induction for safety.
posted by Mitheral at 4:59 AM on August 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Good chance the water would be distilled (vacuum distillation very cheap) in which case companies might sell mineral additives to give it some taste back.
Despite the expense of boosting iron (maybe there is a source on the moon? A meteor crater?) I'd think cooking would be in cast iron with induction for safety.
posted by Mitheral at 4:59 AM on August 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
Lower gravity would prevent the same recipe from spreading at the same rate so they'd be either a lot thicker or maybe even roundish unless you made the batter 1/6 as thin.
Fwiw in my mind, for some reason, they're being cooked outside and I'm enjoying the idea of the flip taking minutes to complete as the Pancake glorious spins miles above you head.
Also, I wonder what the escape velocity of a pancake on the moon is.
posted by chasles at 5:02 AM on August 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
Fwiw in my mind, for some reason, they're being cooked outside and I'm enjoying the idea of the flip taking minutes to complete as the Pancake glorious spins miles above you head.
Also, I wonder what the escape velocity of a pancake on the moon is.
posted by chasles at 5:02 AM on August 26, 2023 [4 favorites]
This is not an answer, but I was reminded of a short story.
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 5:57 AM on August 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
posted by the antecedent of that pronoun at 5:57 AM on August 26, 2023 [5 favorites]
I wonder what the escape velocity of a pancake on the moon is.
Same as everything else (about 2.4 km/s or 5300 mph) unless your pancakes violate the weak equivalence principle, in which case send me your recipe so I can pass it off as my own and get a Nobel Prize.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:01 AM on August 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
Same as everything else (about 2.4 km/s or 5300 mph) unless your pancakes violate the weak equivalence principle, in which case send me your recipe so I can pass it off as my own and get a Nobel Prize.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:01 AM on August 26, 2023 [6 favorites]
The companies that make food for in-flight meals have to boost the spice and salt because everyone's taste is dulled in the thin dry air on board. It would probably be similar in a moon base, giving you an excuse to add just huge piles of blueberries (freeze-dried and reconstituted with local water) and pour on way more maple syrup (again, probably reconstituted from a powder).
posted by moonmilk at 7:30 AM on August 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by moonmilk at 7:30 AM on August 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
You'll definitely need a moon base, because eating pancakes in a space suit would be very difficult and make a big mess.
You could make a nice moon base by putting a lid on a big crater. There are lots of very very big craters on the moon! Some of them are miles and miles and miles across. If you put lots and lots of air in your crater, so that everyone could breathe, maybe the roof could float on the air! (Some novel materials science might be required for this). In this moon base, people who like caves could dig houses in the walls of the crater, and people who like open spaces could build their house in the middle. Perhaps they could build a house out of moon rock dug out from all the caves.
You'd have to be very very careful not to start fires in the moon base, since the only air on the moon to breathe is the air in your moon base. Fires breathe air just like people do, only fires like to breathe lots and lots of it very fast! A fire on a moon base would be very dangerous. I don't think you'd be allowed a gas stove to make pancakes, and you'd have to make really sure to remember to turn off the stove afterwards. You definitely wouldn't be allowed a bonfire, which is the most fun way to make pancakes on Earth.
Another thing you need to do on the Moon is look after all the water very carefully. When you've put water in the pancakes, you better make sure you pee it right back into the toilet later, so it can be recycled for your next pancakes! We can mine "new" water on the moon but that will be VERY expensive.
Whether you can keep chickens on the moon depends a bit on how much you've terraformed the moon. If there's enough soil in your moon base to grow plants, maybe you could also have chickens. But I think it would be very difficult to make soil on the moon, since soil is made of dead organic stuff like plants and animals, and until you can grow those things on the moon you have to take it all the way there on a rocket. Perhaps composting any dead moon people would be a good way to start! Plants are great for recycling our carbon dioxide into oxygen, so soil is something we'll probably want as soon as possible. Anyway, if we don't yet have moon chickens then we'll be using dried egg from Earth instead of real eggs. It's very hard to send eggs in a rocket because they get all smashed up. [edit: actually I think they would be fine, because eggs are very strong, but dried egg would take up less room anyway ]
On the moon we need to reuse everything (or recycle it, but that's expensive). We can't just throw things away and get more from Earth. So our pancake ingredients will probably come from one of those Reuse Shops where you bring your own container.
I guess we'll be using powdered and dried things in our pancakes, like flour and dried milk, since dried things are not very heavy so it's easier to lift them all the way to the moon on a rocket. Dried blueberries would be yummy!
Absolutely the most fun part of making pancakes will be turning them over. They will fly up so slowly that if you had two pans you could easily play Tennis with a pancake, although that wouldn't be very safe since someone might get burned.
Of course the moon base would have a hospital (and maybe an ambulance spaceship in case anyone is really badly hurt and needs to go back to Earth). If someone did get hurt, then the doctors and nurses could fix them up just like they do on Earth and make them better again. Perhaps they have pancakes for breakfast in the hospital too!
posted by quacks like a duck at 8:36 AM on August 26, 2023 [15 favorites]
You could make a nice moon base by putting a lid on a big crater. There are lots of very very big craters on the moon! Some of them are miles and miles and miles across. If you put lots and lots of air in your crater, so that everyone could breathe, maybe the roof could float on the air! (Some novel materials science might be required for this). In this moon base, people who like caves could dig houses in the walls of the crater, and people who like open spaces could build their house in the middle. Perhaps they could build a house out of moon rock dug out from all the caves.
You'd have to be very very careful not to start fires in the moon base, since the only air on the moon to breathe is the air in your moon base. Fires breathe air just like people do, only fires like to breathe lots and lots of it very fast! A fire on a moon base would be very dangerous. I don't think you'd be allowed a gas stove to make pancakes, and you'd have to make really sure to remember to turn off the stove afterwards. You definitely wouldn't be allowed a bonfire, which is the most fun way to make pancakes on Earth.
Another thing you need to do on the Moon is look after all the water very carefully. When you've put water in the pancakes, you better make sure you pee it right back into the toilet later, so it can be recycled for your next pancakes! We can mine "new" water on the moon but that will be VERY expensive.
Whether you can keep chickens on the moon depends a bit on how much you've terraformed the moon. If there's enough soil in your moon base to grow plants, maybe you could also have chickens. But I think it would be very difficult to make soil on the moon, since soil is made of dead organic stuff like plants and animals, and until you can grow those things on the moon you have to take it all the way there on a rocket. Perhaps composting any dead moon people would be a good way to start! Plants are great for recycling our carbon dioxide into oxygen, so soil is something we'll probably want as soon as possible. Anyway, if we don't yet have moon chickens then we'll be using dried egg from Earth instead of real eggs. It's very hard to send eggs in a rocket because they get all smashed up. [edit: actually I think they would be fine, because eggs are very strong, but dried egg would take up less room anyway ]
On the moon we need to reuse everything (or recycle it, but that's expensive). We can't just throw things away and get more from Earth. So our pancake ingredients will probably come from one of those Reuse Shops where you bring your own container.
I guess we'll be using powdered and dried things in our pancakes, like flour and dried milk, since dried things are not very heavy so it's easier to lift them all the way to the moon on a rocket. Dried blueberries would be yummy!
Absolutely the most fun part of making pancakes will be turning them over. They will fly up so slowly that if you had two pans you could easily play Tennis with a pancake, although that wouldn't be very safe since someone might get burned.
Of course the moon base would have a hospital (and maybe an ambulance spaceship in case anyone is really badly hurt and needs to go back to Earth). If someone did get hurt, then the doctors and nurses could fix them up just like they do on Earth and make them better again. Perhaps they have pancakes for breakfast in the hospital too!
posted by quacks like a duck at 8:36 AM on August 26, 2023 [15 favorites]
I'm not sure why people are assuming a moonbase wouldn't be pressurized to sea level on earth.
As far as I can see your two main challenges are getting milk and lower gravity. Perhaps the cow that jumped over the moon stopped to get milked? Pancake mix will have to be imported.
As others have mentioned the pancake batter will take a long time to spread out on its own. You could speed things by having a circular mould you spoon the batter into and then turn over the whole thing onto the plate.
For cooking you can use two flat plates, one below and above. When the pancake is done on the bottom you just use a spatula to lift it to the top plate, where it will stick until it is cooked and then fall off.
The syrup is going to flow really slowly from the bottle and will probably be absorbed too quickly to spread. You'll want a big syrup dispenser with multiple spouts so the syrup gets put down all over the pancake.
All of this is fanciful fun of course. The pancakes will arrive from earth ready to microwave and there will be a spreadable syrup with them.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:37 AM on August 26, 2023
As far as I can see your two main challenges are getting milk and lower gravity. Perhaps the cow that jumped over the moon stopped to get milked? Pancake mix will have to be imported.
As others have mentioned the pancake batter will take a long time to spread out on its own. You could speed things by having a circular mould you spoon the batter into and then turn over the whole thing onto the plate.
For cooking you can use two flat plates, one below and above. When the pancake is done on the bottom you just use a spatula to lift it to the top plate, where it will stick until it is cooked and then fall off.
The syrup is going to flow really slowly from the bottle and will probably be absorbed too quickly to spread. You'll want a big syrup dispenser with multiple spouts so the syrup gets put down all over the pancake.
All of this is fanciful fun of course. The pancakes will arrive from earth ready to microwave and there will be a spreadable syrup with them.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:37 AM on August 26, 2023
Gentle flips are what you take
Pancakes on the moon
I hope the syrup's great
Pancakes on the moon
I could eat forever
Pancakes on the moon
We could eat together
Pancakes on, pancakes on the moon
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:01 AM on August 26, 2023 [15 favorites]
Pancakes on the moon
I hope the syrup's great
Pancakes on the moon
I could eat forever
Pancakes on the moon
We could eat together
Pancakes on, pancakes on the moon
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 9:01 AM on August 26, 2023 [15 favorites]
@BobTheScientist: Where do I get these "powered eggs" you speak of? :)
posted by falsedmitri at 9:36 AM on August 26, 2023
posted by falsedmitri at 9:36 AM on August 26, 2023
falsedmitri: Where do I get these "powered eggs" you speak of? :)
From powered chickens of course, hatched from powered eggs laid by powered chickens etcetera back until you get to the powered dinosaurs and on and on and on.
posted by Stoneshop at 12:30 PM on August 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
From powered chickens of course, hatched from powered eggs laid by powered chickens etcetera back until you get to the powered dinosaurs and on and on and on.
posted by Stoneshop at 12:30 PM on August 26, 2023 [3 favorites]
Tell Me No Lies: I'm not sure why people are assuming a moonbase wouldn't be pressurized to sea level on earth.
Because 2000m to 3000m (6000ft to 9000ft) would be quite enough already; airplanes aren't at sea level pressure when flying at cruising altitude either. Because of the lower gravity you don't have to exert yourself nearly as much so you won't get out of breath as much as you would at those altitudes on earth so the 'living at height' won't be much of a strain. And lower pressure in a moon habitat will result in lower leakage, something that will always happen to some extent.
posted by Stoneshop at 12:40 PM on August 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
Because 2000m to 3000m (6000ft to 9000ft) would be quite enough already; airplanes aren't at sea level pressure when flying at cruising altitude either. Because of the lower gravity you don't have to exert yourself nearly as much so you won't get out of breath as much as you would at those altitudes on earth so the 'living at height' won't be much of a strain. And lower pressure in a moon habitat will result in lower leakage, something that will always happen to some extent.
posted by Stoneshop at 12:40 PM on August 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
chasles: unless you made the batter 1/6 as thin.
I don't think the pancake batter viscosity required for optimal distribution has a linear relation with the local gravity; there's also the adhesive forces between the batter and the pan surface to take into account, as well as the cohesive properties of the batter (which is a factor in the viscosity, but not the only one)*.
* think of a blob of mercury: strongly cohesive but low viscosity.
posted by Stoneshop at 12:51 PM on August 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't think the pancake batter viscosity required for optimal distribution has a linear relation with the local gravity; there's also the adhesive forces between the batter and the pan surface to take into account, as well as the cohesive properties of the batter (which is a factor in the viscosity, but not the only one)*.
* think of a blob of mercury: strongly cohesive but low viscosity.
posted by Stoneshop at 12:51 PM on August 26, 2023 [2 favorites]
I strongly advise not including mercury as a moon pancakes ingredient.
posted by flabdablet at 1:13 PM on August 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by flabdablet at 1:13 PM on August 26, 2023 [1 favorite]
quacks like a duck: I don't think you'd be allowed a gas stove to make pancakes, and you'd have to make really sure to remember to turn off the stove afterwards.
I think that Maytag and Whirlpool can be asked to build electrical stoves specially for use on the moon, with a timer so that they turn off when you're done cooking but forgot to switch it off yourself.
It will all be electric, there's a lot of space around such a base to put up solar panels and people will want to charge their phones and tablets and have lights in their houses, but two weeks out of four the panels will be in the shade so you would need a second set on the other side of the moon, and a gigantic extension cord.
posted by Stoneshop at 3:22 AM on August 27, 2023
I think that Maytag and Whirlpool can be asked to build electrical stoves specially for use on the moon, with a timer so that they turn off when you're done cooking but forgot to switch it off yourself.
It will all be electric, there's a lot of space around such a base to put up solar panels and people will want to charge their phones and tablets and have lights in their houses, but two weeks out of four the panels will be in the shade so you would need a second set on the other side of the moon, and a gigantic extension cord.
posted by Stoneshop at 3:22 AM on August 27, 2023
Seems like the moon would be a very interesting place for solar panels! There's lots of open space to put them, and there are no trees and buildings to make shadows on them. On Earth, most people get much less sun in winter than summer, and much less sun at dawn and dusk than at midday. But because the Moon has no atmosphere and little axial tilt, we'd get a fairly even amount of sun during daylight hours, all year round. That's good if you want to be able to make pancakes any time.
What would be a problem (as Stoneshop says) is the night. On the moon you have day for two weeks and then night for two weeks. That's a bit too long to just charge a battery during the day and use it at night. Maybe we can invent better batteries! But batteries are also very heavy so it's hard to get them to the moon. Stoneshop's idea of putting more panels on the other side of the moon is much better.
You'd need a lot of solar panels, because during the day on the moon the air is as hot as boiling water, and at night it's much colder than Earth's South Pole. So the moon base would need lots and lots of heating at night, and lots and lots of cooling during the day. Perhaps some people would live in really really deep caves (like a mine) where the temperature wouldn't go up and down so much.
We'd also have to invent new solar panels since our current ones don't work well at 100°C.
Another possibility would to put the moon base on a very big train that goes all the way round the moon. Then you could find the moment at dawn or dusk when the temperature is just right, and follow that moment all the way round the moon for ever (with your solar panels).
Dawn would be better than dusk, because then it would always be breakfast time!
posted by quacks like a duck at 4:17 AM on August 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
What would be a problem (as Stoneshop says) is the night. On the moon you have day for two weeks and then night for two weeks. That's a bit too long to just charge a battery during the day and use it at night. Maybe we can invent better batteries! But batteries are also very heavy so it's hard to get them to the moon. Stoneshop's idea of putting more panels on the other side of the moon is much better.
You'd need a lot of solar panels, because during the day on the moon the air is as hot as boiling water, and at night it's much colder than Earth's South Pole. So the moon base would need lots and lots of heating at night, and lots and lots of cooling during the day. Perhaps some people would live in really really deep caves (like a mine) where the temperature wouldn't go up and down so much.
We'd also have to invent new solar panels since our current ones don't work well at 100°C.
Another possibility would to put the moon base on a very big train that goes all the way round the moon. Then you could find the moment at dawn or dusk when the temperature is just right, and follow that moment all the way round the moon for ever (with your solar panels).
Dawn would be better than dusk, because then it would always be breakfast time!
posted by quacks like a duck at 4:17 AM on August 27, 2023 [1 favorite]
You can get powdered eggs from Amazon, but for the moon dweller, I anticipate an 'only add water' mix.
posted by SemiSalt at 4:58 AM on August 27, 2023
posted by SemiSalt at 4:58 AM on August 27, 2023
What would be a problem (as Stoneshop says) is the night. On the moon you have day for two weeks and then night for two weeks. That's a bit too long to just charge a battery during the day and use it at night. Maybe we can invent better batteries! But batteries are also very heavy so it's hard to get them to the moon.
This is probably above the interest level of a 3-year-old, but one could imagine compressed air energy storage, gravity batteries, or water electrolysis as ways to store energy at scale on the moon.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:22 AM on August 27, 2023
This is probably above the interest level of a 3-year-old, but one could imagine compressed air energy storage, gravity batteries, or water electrolysis as ways to store energy at scale on the moon.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:22 AM on August 27, 2023
These seem like solutions for places with a slightly more plentiful supply of air, water or gravity!
I wonder if we could do something with a massive heat sink, though (very literally massive). If we could heat up a lot of rock enough during the day, maybe we could use the heat to run a steam generator during the night (or use it directly for heating, of course). Then we could sneak in when nobody was looking and cook pancakes, very carefully, on the hot parts of the generator.
posted by quacks like a duck at 8:14 AM on August 27, 2023
I wonder if we could do something with a massive heat sink, though (very literally massive). If we could heat up a lot of rock enough during the day, maybe we could use the heat to run a steam generator during the night (or use it directly for heating, of course). Then we could sneak in when nobody was looking and cook pancakes, very carefully, on the hot parts of the generator.
posted by quacks like a duck at 8:14 AM on August 27, 2023
I strongly advise not including mercury as a moon pancakes ingredient.
You can take my shiny syrup when you pry it from my trembling hands.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 8:28 AM on August 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
You can take my shiny syrup when you pry it from my trembling hands.
posted by It's Never Lurgi at 8:28 AM on August 27, 2023 [2 favorites]
These seem like solutions for places with a slightly more plentiful supply of air, water or gravity!
That's fair! I was mainly trying to figure out ways that didn't require transportation of a lot of heavy stuff from Earth. Compressed-air storage could be adapted to a situation where the air (or whatever gas is available) is pumped between a high-pressure chamber and a low-pressure chamber rather than taken from an atmosphere. There's a fair amount of water ice at the lunar poles. And you'd just need more gravity batteries to store the same amount of energy as Earth (six times as many batteries, or the same number of batteries but six times taller, or something like that), which might not be insurmountable for a
The problem of turning things into heat is that you inevitably lose a substantial amount of energy when you try to turn it back into electricity (the second law of thermodynamics and all that.) But if we can put up enough solar panels to account for these losses then a thermal storage method could work too.
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:46 AM on August 27, 2023
That's fair! I was mainly trying to figure out ways that didn't require transportation of a lot of heavy stuff from Earth. Compressed-air storage could be adapted to a situation where the air (or whatever gas is available) is pumped between a high-pressure chamber and a low-pressure chamber rather than taken from an atmosphere. There's a fair amount of water ice at the lunar poles. And you'd just need more gravity batteries to store the same amount of energy as Earth (six times as many batteries, or the same number of batteries but six times taller, or something like that), which might not be insurmountable for a
The problem of turning things into heat is that you inevitably lose a substantial amount of energy when you try to turn it back into electricity (the second law of thermodynamics and all that.) But if we can put up enough solar panels to account for these losses then a thermal storage method could work too.
posted by Johnny Assay at 8:46 AM on August 27, 2023
don't think the pancake batter viscosity required for optimal distribution has a linear relation with the local gravity; there's also the adhesive forces between the batter and the pan surface to take into account, as well as the cohesive properties of the batter (which is a factor in the viscosity, but not the only one)*.
* think of a blob of mercury: strongly cohesive but low viscosity.
I wondered about this but since I do think it will spread slower I feel like it will cook enough to set before spreading anywhere near as much as on earth. Ergo ipso facto panballs not pancakes.
posted by chasles at 5:17 PM on August 28, 2023
* think of a blob of mercury: strongly cohesive but low viscosity.
I wondered about this but since I do think it will spread slower I feel like it will cook enough to set before spreading anywhere near as much as on earth. Ergo ipso facto panballs not pancakes.
posted by chasles at 5:17 PM on August 28, 2023
Mod note: [btw, this has been added to the sidebar]
posted by taz (staff) at 1:33 AM on August 29, 2023
posted by taz (staff) at 1:33 AM on August 29, 2023
chasles: I wondered about this but since I do think it will spread slower
As such it likely does, but here on Earth we (the set of people baking thin pancakes) already deal with the spreading versus premature cooking by tilting the pan and moving it around. Lower gravity would dictate a larger tilt angle, plus very likely a lower viscosity batter.
One can also think of a helper device that distributes the batter evenly around the area of the pan before it actually gets dumped on to it. I'm thinking of a shallow round tray with holes with a second disc covering the bottom, again with holes. One position the holes line up and allow the batter to flow into the pan under each of the holes simultaneously, which worst case will give you a number of interconnected small pancakes but hopefully you get one full-size pancake.
posted by Stoneshop at 2:42 AM on August 29, 2023
As such it likely does, but here on Earth we (the set of people baking thin pancakes) already deal with the spreading versus premature cooking by tilting the pan and moving it around. Lower gravity would dictate a larger tilt angle, plus very likely a lower viscosity batter.
One can also think of a helper device that distributes the batter evenly around the area of the pan before it actually gets dumped on to it. I'm thinking of a shallow round tray with holes with a second disc covering the bottom, again with holes. One position the holes line up and allow the batter to flow into the pan under each of the holes simultaneously, which worst case will give you a number of interconnected small pancakes but hopefully you get one full-size pancake.
posted by Stoneshop at 2:42 AM on August 29, 2023
The reason you’d pressurize your moon base to sea level with nitrogen/oxygen mix is that otherwise you’d have that whole “everything tastes like crap” phenomenon. And who wants to live on the moon and not be able to taste stuff?
Also, since the moon is very high it should be a great place to grow coffee (a big sealed crater should have plenty of area to grow plants) and a breakfast of pancakes demands good black coffee. Which, again, you want to be able to taste.
My grandkids have all enjoyed coffee for breakfast (though it is heavily diluted by cream and sugar). Oh yeah, the moon will have the best cream too! Got to get the fertilizer for the coffee trees from someplace, and cows seem like a logical way to do it. In the moon barns.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 6:15 PM on August 29, 2023
Also, since the moon is very high it should be a great place to grow coffee (a big sealed crater should have plenty of area to grow plants) and a breakfast of pancakes demands good black coffee. Which, again, you want to be able to taste.
My grandkids have all enjoyed coffee for breakfast (though it is heavily diluted by cream and sugar). Oh yeah, the moon will have the best cream too! Got to get the fertilizer for the coffee trees from someplace, and cows seem like a logical way to do it. In the moon barns.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 6:15 PM on August 29, 2023
When you flip the pancake into the air it will rise slowly due to low gravity, so you can use the same pan to catch the pancake in mid-air and thus cook the other side.
Lower gravity would prevent the same recipe from spreading at the same rate...
One way to mitigate that would be to get the pan good and hot and then hold it up at an angle and spin yourself around quickly, using centrifugal force to flatten out the pancake as it cooks.
Of course when you stop spinning there is a good chance the pancake will carry on spinning by itself and you will have to catch it.
posted by Lanark at 7:01 AM on August 30, 2023
Lower gravity would prevent the same recipe from spreading at the same rate...
One way to mitigate that would be to get the pan good and hot and then hold it up at an angle and spin yourself around quickly, using centrifugal force to flatten out the pancake as it cooks.
Of course when you stop spinning there is a good chance the pancake will carry on spinning by itself and you will have to catch it.
posted by Lanark at 7:01 AM on August 30, 2023
> viscosity
You could practice moon pancakes by making crepes on earth where the batter needs some help spreading out. Tilting the pan is one way, but I've seen the bottom of a ladle used and today I learned of the crepe spreader
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 9:37 PM on September 2, 2023
You could practice moon pancakes by making crepes on earth where the batter needs some help spreading out. Tilting the pan is one way, but I've seen the bottom of a ladle used and today I learned of the crepe spreader
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 9:37 PM on September 2, 2023
On the moon you have day for two weeks and then night for two weeks.
This is only true at the equator. One of the reasons the current batch of lunar missions (Chandrayaan, Artemis, etc) are going to the poles is because 1. There are permanently shaded craters that may have water ice in them and 2. There are regions of almost permanent sunlight.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 1:14 PM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
This is only true at the equator. One of the reasons the current batch of lunar missions (Chandrayaan, Artemis, etc) are going to the poles is because 1. There are permanently shaded craters that may have water ice in them and 2. There are regions of almost permanent sunlight.
posted by rhamphorhynchus at 1:14 PM on September 5, 2023 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by BobTheScientist at 4:15 AM on August 26, 2023 [1 favorite]