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As part of the preparation of long duration manned spaceflights, ESA started in 1990 a series of ground-based simulations aimed at evaluating the physiological and psychological issues of living in confined conditions for limited and constrained communities. The last campaign, called HUBES took place at IBMP (Institute for Biomedical Problems), Moscow, from September 1994 to Mid-January 1995. During 135 days, a crew of 3 Russian members was placed in living / working conditions simulating a long duration flight on board the Russian MIR station. During this period, an experiment was held to study the crewmembers' food intake. This paper presents the main features of the food system implemented as well as the scientific findings.

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.