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A simulation campaign, EXEMSI, organized by the ESA Long Term Programme Office was held from Sept. 7th to Nov. 6th 1992 in Germany. The crew- three men and one woman- was placed in confined and isolated living conditions in an hyperbaric chamber, thus simulating a space environment. During this two-month period, a nutritional investigation was conducted with a twofold objective: from an operational standpoint, to define and setup the food system; from a scientific standpoint, to collect data on the spontaneous nutritional behavior of the crew. In this scope, a well-defined food system was implemented. For food management and on line nutritional data collection, dedicated software has been developed. This software based on using barcodes permitted an accurate recording of food consumption for each crewmember. Nutritional assessments were then performed daily for each crewmember -or EMSInaut- by summing the nutritional values of all the foods consumed.

A study on Hygiene in long duration space missions was held between 1988-1989 for ESA Long Term Programme Office (1), (2). The impact of Hygiene on station contamination and station layout was reviewed as well as psychological, social and cultural aspects, leading to the conclusion that hygiene is a key habitability issue. Among its main results, the study highlighted the importance of water in both environmental and personal hygiene: the use of water in body hygiene is culturally and socially established. As a consequence, water was found as the main consumable in hygiene functions. Thus, due to the limited water availability in space stations, particular attention was paid to on board water management. Simulation software was developed to demonstrate the relation between hygiene subsystems concepts and water requirements. The software was designed as a tool. Parameters allow to define various mission profiles.