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Three distinct food system paradigms have been envisioned for long-term space missions. The Skylab, Mir and ISS food systems were based on single-serving prepackaged foods, ready to rehydrate and heat. Bioregenerative food systems, derived from crops grown and processed at the planetary station, have been studied at JSC and KSC. The US Antarctic Program’s Amundsen-Scott South Pole Base uses the third paradigm: bulk packaged food ingredients delivered once a year and used to prepare meals on the station. The packaged food ingredients are supplemented with limited amounts of fresh foods received occasionally during the Antarctic summer, trace amounts of herb and salad crops from the hydroponic garden, and some prepackaged ready to eat foods, so the Pole system is actually a hybrid system; however, it is worth studying as a bulk packaged food system because of the preponderance of bulk packaged food ingredients used.

Clothing supply has been examined for historical, current, and planned missions. For STS, crew clothing is stowed on the orbiter and returned to JSC for refurbishment. On Mir, clothing was supplied and then disposed of on Progress for incineration on re-entry. For ISS, the Russian laundry and 75% of the US laundry is placed on Progress for destructive re-entry. The rest of the US laundry is stowed in mesh bags and returned to earth in the Multi Purpose Logistics Module (MPLM) or in the STS middeck. For previous missions, clothing was supplied and thrown away. Supplying clothing without washing dirty clothing will be costly for long-duration missions. An on-board laundry system may reduce overall mission costs, as shown in previous, less accurate, metric studies. Some design and development of flight hardware laundry systems has been completed, such as the SBIR Phase I and Phase II study performed by UMPQUA Research Company for JSC in 1993.