Four Crazy Ways to Cook Your Turkey Using NASA Equipment

Most of you will use ovens to cook your turkeys tomorrow. But most of you are not NASA. We asked their engineers and science writers how they would cook a turkey to perfection using their high tech gear instead of traditional methods. Then we asked Josh McKible to illustrate their recipes.

The results are fantastic, kind of hilarious, and completely real:


By Gary Meadows (DSCOVR Mission Systems Engineer) and Karl Hille (Media Specialist)

What you need

• One turkey.
• Some kapton with vacuum-deposited aluminum (VDA) coating used in thermal blankets that protect many of our spacecraft from the rigors of space flight and direct exposure to the sun.
• A satellite dish of significant girth to act as a massive parabolic collector and focuser of solar energy.
• A R-2000 Rotopod, and a thermal data acquisition system like those used in our thermal vacuum chamber.

• Instructions

  1. Line one of the dish antennas with the VDA kapton, shiny side out, turning it into a solar reflector.

  2. Insert thermal data acquisition system deep into the turkey toward the center of the stuffing. Connect thermocouple to data acquisition system and set limit to 75 degrees C.

  3. Stick the bird on a rotopod platform. Mount the rotopod offset to the dish antenna feedhorn, making sure to position the mount so that the rotopod is not between the bird and the dish, and so that the rotational axis is perpendicular to the feedhorn. Program the rotopod to make a 180 degree rotation every 30 minutes. Initiate rotation.


  4. Program dish to track the sun and initiate tracking.


  5. Prepare mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and everything else as usual while turkey cooks (best to do this mid-day for maximum solar irradiance).


  6. Exact cooking time may vary depending on the time of day, air temperature and wind speed. Turkey may be dry on the outside, but towards the center there ought to be some decent meat and stuffing.


  7. When the thermocouple reaches the limit, remove and carve the bird.


  8. Eat, watch football, fall asleep.

the other recipes are here