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On the NPR page Our Favorite Things, Short Wave-style there is an image whose caption reads

Earlier this month, crew aboard the International Space Station received a a novel item in their cargo re-supply: a Zero-G oven and cookie dough. NASA/Nanoracks

Sometimes I have trouble understanding images used in popular news, and this is one of them.

This is not the oven obviously, is it a cookie-shaped blob of uncooked cookie dough? If so, what kind of package is it inside of, and why does it look so high tech/complicated?

  • I'm counting twenty-two... rivets?
  • S/N 1002? Is this Cookie-2?
  • 0GK?

Related:

from the NPR page "Our Favorite Things, Short Wave-style" Earlier this month, crew aboard the International Space Station received a a novel item in their cargo re-supply: a Zero-G oven and cookie dough. NASA/Nanoracks

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That was cookie #2 of 5. It is part of an experiment on just how cooking food behaves in zero-g. For future longterm missions and such.

The "0GK" stands for "Zero Gee Kitchen", the manufacturer of the oven. They and "Nanoracks" built the oven. The oven went up in November two years ago.(Youtube of that) enter image description here Image from Smithsonianmag.com

The rivets:... do you want 150Celcius cookie dough exploding all over your instruments in event of container failure? Apparently without convection cooking takes long time too, that one got cooked for 75 minutes (Earth time usually more like 25 min), and while it smelled good it was apparently still undercooked. Report on this at BBC.

P.S. About those rivets. I think the 16 around the edge are structural, but the 2 groups of 3 are vents, to allow air/steam to escape as needed. This is just conjecture though, I failed to locate any actual blueprints for that cookie. And I never thought I'd be writing that sentence with a straight face.

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    $\begingroup$ Our technology has advanced substantially since the Easy-Bake Oven. $\endgroup$
    – fred_dot_u
    Dec 27, 2021 at 11:00
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    $\begingroup$ @fred_dot_u yeah well, apparently this is the Difficult-Bake Oven. They still haven't figured out how to bake choc-chip cookies without the things turning to rubber, or remaining as goo. Seems gravity is a very required ingredient in every cookie recipe, that is normally omitted from the recipe books because it is so commonly available on Earth. More seriously though.. cooking without convection leads to immense difficulty in temperature control. $\endgroup$
    – CuteKItty_pleaseStopBArking
    Dec 27, 2021 at 11:47
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    $\begingroup$ Why not just install a fan in it? $\endgroup$
    – Innovine
    Dec 27, 2021 at 17:34
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    $\begingroup$ Shit, can't go to mars until we resolve the issue of undercooked cookie dough... $\endgroup$
    – Innovine
    Dec 27, 2021 at 17:36
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    $\begingroup$ For the vent rivets, you can see the one on the back doesn't go all the way through both layers, but just puts a hole in the one layer, so venting seems like a good conjecture. I think the shape of this package may also be to force it to go into a flattened cookie shape, since typically chocolate chip cookies would be drop cookies and flatten by gravity, then rise due to steam expansion and leavener...I think that would not end up with a nice cookie shape in zero g. $\endgroup$
    – user3067860
    Dec 27, 2021 at 18:12

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