Although Jules Verne vividly described the adventures of the three fearless passengers aboard his lunar spacecraft, he forgot to mention how Michel Ardan managed to cook food under such extraordinary conditions. Surely, he did not imagine that cooking in space could be interesting — and that is all the more unfortunate. The point is, in a spacecraft moving through space, everything becomes weightless. Jules Verne treated this fact rather lightly, as if cooking in a weightless environment could not offer fertile ground for the imagination and storytelling of a science fiction writer.

Now, let us use our own imagination and complete the work left unfinished by the talented author of From the Earth to the Moon. As you read this modest result of our effort — which is essentially an imitation of Verne — keep in mind that inside the spacecraft, there is no gravity and all objects are weightless.

Having Lunch in Zero Gravity

Michel Ardan said: “My friends, we still haven’t thought about lunch. It’s true that we’ve lost our weight, but I don’t think we’ve lost our appetite. So if you’ll allow me, I’ll now prepare a zero-gravity lunch for you — and surely it will be the lightest meal ever made.”

The Frenchman didn’t wait for a reply and got to work. As Ardan began unscrewing the cap of a large water bottle, he muttered to himself: “This bottle wants to pretend it’s empty, but it won’t fool me. I know why you feel so light. Alright, the bottle is open now. My God! Quick — pour your weightless contents into the pot!”

He tilted the bottle to one side, then the other — but no, the water wouldn’t come out. Nicholl, coming to his aid, said: “Dear Ardan, don’t trouble yourself. Don’t you know that in our spacecraft there’s no gravity, and water never pours out on its own? You have to shake it out — like when you’re trying to get thick syrup out of a bottle.”

Ardan tapped the bottom of the bottle with his hand; to his amazement, a ball of water, the size of a fist, emerged from the neck of the bottle. Astonished, he exclaimed: “Why did the water do that? I didn’t expect it at all! Please, my learned friends, tell me why this happened?”

Nicholl said: "Dear Ardan, it’s nothing — it’s just a drop of water. In a weightless world where gravity doesn’t exist, there’s no limit to the size of water droplets. It’s only gravity that makes liquids take the shape of their containers, flow, or pour out. But here, weightlessness reigns, and liquids are affected only by their own molecular forces. Naturally, they tend to form spheres — just like in the famous Plateau experiment, where oil turns into globules."

Michael quickly replied: “Plateau’s experiments can stay with him; I need to boil water and make soup. God knows no molecular force is going to stop me.”

He angrily started shaking the bottle, trying to pour the water into a pot that was floating in the air. But it seemed like everything was working against him. As soon as the large water droplets touched the pot, they spread out over it, climbed up the edges, and ran around to the back. In no time, both the front and back of the pot were covered with a thick layer of water. Under these conditions, boiling water was pointless.

Nicholl, calm and collected, turned to the now-frustrated Ardan and said: “It’s an enlightening experience that shows the remarkable power of adhesion. Don’t worry! This is a normal phenomenon — it has to do with the wetting of solid surfaces. The only difference is that now gravity isn’t interfering, so we can observe the full process of the phenomenon.”

“I’m very sorry that gravity isn’t interfering!” Ardan snapped. “Whether it’s related to wetting or something else, I want the water in the pot, not around it. Tell me — what kind of cook could possibly make soup under these conditions?!”

Barbicane joined the conversation with a soothing tone: “If that’s the only problem, it can be easily solved. You surely know that water can’t stick to surfaces coated with a thin layer of grease. So just grease the back of the pot — the water will stay inside.”

“Bravo! Now that is what I call a real scientific solution!”

Overjoyed, Ardan immediately began greasing the back of the pot after making that remark. Then he turned on the gas flame and tried to place the pot over it to boil the water — but once again, things turned against him. This time, the flame started to misbehave. It burned weakly for half a minute, then went out. Ardan was confused. He tried many times to keep the flame lit, but all his efforts were in vain. No — the flame simply refused to burn properly. In desperation, he turned to his friends and asked:

“Barbicane! Nicholl! Don’t the laws of physics — or the regulations of the gas company — offer some way to make this stubborn flame burn properly?”

Nicholl explained: “The way the flame behaves is perfectly consistent with the laws of physics. There’s nothing unusual or unexpected about it. But as for the gas company regulations — well, I suppose in a place without gravity, the company might as well shut down. As you know, the byproducts of combustion are carbon dioxide and water vapor — and neither of those supports burning. On Earth, these combustion products don’t stay near the flame. Because of their heat, they become lighter and rise, making room for fresh, cool air to flow in. But here, since there’s no gravity, the combustion products remain where they’re generated. They surround the flame and block fresh air from reaching it. That’s why the flame looks so pale — and why it quickly goes out. In fact, fire extinguishers use the same principle: they surround a flame with a non-combustible gas to suffoca—”

Ardan cut him off: “So you're saying that if the Earth and its gravity didn’t exist, there’d be no need for fire departments, and fires would just extinguish themselves? Is that it?”

“Yes, that’s exactly it. Now, to make your soup, try lighting the flame one more time, and we’ll help you. Maybe we can create some artificial airflow to make the flame behave like it does on Earth.”

They got to work. Ardan lit the flame for what felt like the hundredth time and resumed cooking, while casting a mischievous glance at Nicholl and Barbicane, who took turns creating a draft to keep the flame alive.Deep down, he firmly believed that his friends — and their so-called science — were the true cause of all his troubles. Then, jokingly, he said:

“Ha ha ha! What wonderful chimneys you make! My dear scientific friends, I must say I feel sorry for you. But if you want a nice, hot lunch, you’ll have to bow to the laws of your own physics!”

A quarter of an hour passed; then half an hour; then a full hour — and still, there was no sign of the water in the pot boiling.

“Dear Ardan, be patient,” said Barbicane. “Under normal conditions, water boils quickly because it has weight. Why? Simply because its different layers mix together. The cooler, heavier upper layers sink down and push the warmer, lighter lower layers upward — which causes the water to heat up quickly. Have you ever tried heating water from the top and waiting for it to boil? If you’ve done that experiment, you know the layers don’t mix. The warm water layers stay still and motionless. As you know, water isn’t a good conductor of heat, and its thermal conductivity is practically negligible. You can bring the surface of the water in a container to a boil while having pieces of ice at the bottom.

But here, in zero gravity, it doesn’t matter which side you heat the water from — the layers don’t mix, so the water heats very slowly. If we want it to heat up faster, we’ll have to stir it constantly.”

Nicholl warned Ardan not to let the temperature of the water reach the boiling point but to keep it just below. He explained that at the boiling point, a large amount of steam is produced — and as he knew, in zero gravity, the specific weight of both water and steam is the same: zero. Therefore, they mix together and create foam.

As soon as Ardan opened the sealed can of peas, he was shocked — and furious. The moment he gave it a slight shake, the peas scattered in every direction through the air. They bounced off the walls and came flying back. A disaster was narrowly avoided. As Nicholl took a breath, a pea shot into his throat — and nearly choked him!

Fortunately, the danger passed. To avoid further catastrophe and rid themselves of these hazardous peas, the friends all grabbed nets and began “hunting.” Thank goodness Ardan had brought the nets — he had intended to use them “on the Moon to catch butterflies.”

Cooking under these conditions was truly a hazardous task. Ardan was right to say that even the most skilled chefs would be helpless in such a situation. He truly suffered while trying to prepare the beefsteak. He had to press the meat down into the oil with a fork, because the elastic behavior of the oil’s vapors kept pushing the half-cooked meat back up — that is, if we can even use the word "up" in a place where “up” and “down” have no real meaning.

In a weightless world, eating also presents a strange spectacle. The passengers, in various positions — some of them admittedly exaggerated on purpose — floated in the air and constantly bumped into one another. Naturally, “sitting” no longer had any meaning. Under such conditions, chairs, beds, and benches were entirely useless. In fact, Ardan’s insistence on setting up a proper "dining table" was quite unnecessary — there was no need for a table at all.

Cooking the soup was difficult — eating it even more so. Ardan couldn’t pour the weightless liquid into a plate by tilting the pot. Frustrated, and ignoring the effects of zero gravity, he tapped the bottom of the upside-down pot in an attempt to get the stubborn soup out. But with that move, he almost ruined all his efforts: a large drop, spherical in shape — which is to say, the entire soup — leapt out of the pot!Ardan was forced to perform a full act of juggling and acrobatics to get the food he had struggled so hard to prepare back into the pot.

Spoons were of no help either; the soup coated the entire bowl and handle of the spoon, clinging to it as a single sticky layer. The three friends greased their spoons with butter to prevent the soup from wetting and sticking to them — but then a new problem arose. The soup formed into small spheres, and they couldn’t manage to get the weightless liquid into their mouths.

At last, Nicholl had an idea: he rolled up some wax paper into tubes, and the crew began sucking the soup through these makeshift straws. From that point on, they even used this method to drink water.

You might be surprised and ask: in a weightless world, how can one drink anything even using such a method? Isn’t it true that the air inside the spacecraft has no weight — and therefore can’t exert pressure? In that case, how can one suck up a liquid?

But this criticism is misplaced. The truth is that the weightlessness of air in such conditions has no effect on its pressure. The air inside an enclosed space still has pressure — and this pressure isn’t due to weight, but because air, like all gases, always tends to expand. On our planet, in open spaces, the force of gravity prevents the air from expanding further .In fact, it is precisely this usual connection between weight and air pressure under Earth’s normal conditions that leads to such misunderstandings.

Although Jules Verne vividly described the adventures of the three fearless passengers aboard his lunar spacecraft, he forgot to mention how Michel Ardan managed to cook food under such extraordinary conditions. Surely, he did not imagine that cooking in space could be interesting — and that is all the more unfortunate. The point is, in a spacecraft moving through space, everything becomes weightless. Jules Verne treated this fact rather lightly, as if cooking in a weightless environment could not offer fertile ground for the imagination and storytelling of a science fiction writer.

Now, let us use our own imagination and complete the work left unfinished by the talented author of From the Earth to the Moon. As you read this modest result of our effort — which is essentially an imitation of Verne — keep in mind that inside the spacecraft, there is no gravity and all objects are weightless.

Having Lunch in Zero Gravity

Michel Ardan said: “My friends, we still haven’t thought about lunch. It’s true that we’ve lost our weight, but I don’t think we’ve lost our appetite. So if you’ll allow me, I’ll now prepare a zero-gravity lunch for you — and surely it will be the lightest meal ever made.”

The Frenchman didn’t wait for a reply and got to work. As Ardan began unscrewing the cap of a large water bottle, he muttered to himself: “This bottle wants to pretend it’s empty, but it won’t fool me. I know why you feel so light. Alright, the bottle is open now. My God! Quick — pour your weightless contents into the pot!”

He tilted the bottle to one side, then the other — but no, the water wouldn’t come out. Nicholl, coming to his aid, said: “Dear Ardan, don’t trouble yourself. Don’t you know that in our spacecraft there’s no gravity, and water never pours out on its own? You have to shake it out — like when you’re trying to get thick syrup out of a bottle.”

Ardan tapped the bottom of the bottle with his hand; to his amazement, a ball of water, the size of a fist, emerged from the neck of the bottle. Astonished, he exclaimed: “Why did the water do that? I didn’t expect it at all! Please, my learned friends, tell me why this happened?”

Nicholl said: "Dear Ardan, it’s nothing — it’s just a drop of water. In a weightless world where gravity doesn’t exist, there’s no limit to the size of water droplets. It’s only gravity that makes liquids take the shape of their containers, flow, or pour out. But here, weightlessness reigns, and liquids are affected only by their own molecular forces. Naturally, they tend to form spheres — just like in the famous Plateau experiment, where oil turns into globules."

Michael quickly replied: “Plateau’s experiments can stay with him; I need to boil water and make soup. God knows no molecular force is going to stop me.”

He angrily started shaking the bottle, trying to pour the water into a pot that was floating in the air. But it seemed like everything was working against him. As soon as the large water droplets touched the pot, they spread out over it, climbed up the edges, and ran around to the back. In no time, both the front and back of the pot were covered with a thick layer of water. Under these conditions, boiling water was pointless.

Nicholl, calm and collected, turned to the now-frustrated Ardan and said: “It’s an enlightening experience that shows the remarkable power of adhesion. Don’t worry! This is a normal phenomenon — it has to do with the wetting of solid surfaces. The only difference is that now gravity isn’t interfering, so we can observe the full process of the phenomenon.”

“I’m very sorry that gravity isn’t interfering!” Ardan snapped. “Whether it’s related to wetting or something else, I want the water in the pot, not around it. Tell me — what kind of cook could possibly make soup under these conditions?!”

Barbicane joined the conversation with a soothing tone: “If that’s the only problem, it can be easily solved. You surely know that water can’t stick to surfaces coated with a thin layer of grease. So just grease the back of the pot — the water will stay inside.”

“Bravo! Now that is what I call a real scientific solution!”

Overjoyed, Ardan immediately began greasing the back of the pot after making that remark. Then he turned on the gas flame and tried to place the pot over it to boil the water — but once again, things turned against him. This time, the flame started to misbehave. It burned weakly for half a minute, then went out. Ardan was confused. He tried many times to keep the flame lit, but all his efforts were in vain. No — the flame simply refused to burn properly. In desperation, he turned to his friends and asked:

“Barbicane! Nicholl! Don’t the laws of physics — or the regulations of the gas company — offer some way to make this stubborn flame burn properly?”

Nicholl explained: “The way the flame behaves is perfectly consistent with the laws of physics. There’s nothing unusual or unexpected about it. But as for the gas company regulations — well, I suppose in a place without gravity, the company might as well shut down. As you know, the byproducts of combustion are carbon dioxide and water vapor — and neither of those supports burning. On Earth, these combustion products don’t stay near the flame. Because of their heat, they become lighter and rise, making room for fresh, cool air to flow in. But here, since there’s no gravity, the combustion products remain where they’re generated. They surround the flame and block fresh air from reaching it. That’s why the flame looks so pale — and why it quickly goes out. In fact, fire extinguishers use the same principle: they surround a flame with a non-combustible gas to suffoca—”

Ardan cut him off: “So you're saying that if the Earth and its gravity didn’t exist, there’d be no need for fire departments, and fires would just extinguish themselves? Is that it?”

“Yes, that’s exactly it. Now, to make your soup, try lighting the flame one more time, and we’ll help you. Maybe we can create some artificial airflow to make the flame behave like it does on Earth.”

They got to work. Ardan lit the flame for what felt like the hundredth time and resumed cooking, while casting a mischievous glance at Nicholl and Barbicane, who took turns creating a draft to keep the flame alive.Deep down, he firmly believed that his friends — and their so-called science — were the true cause of all his troubles. Then, jokingly, he said:

“Ha ha ha! What wonderful chimneys you make! My dear scientific friends, I must say I feel sorry for you. But if you want a nice, hot lunch, you’ll have to bow to the laws of your own physics!”

A quarter of an hour passed; then half an hour; then a full hour — and still, there was no sign of the water in the pot boiling.

“Dear Ardan, be patient,” said Barbicane. “Under normal conditions, water boils quickly because it has weight. Why? Simply because its different layers mix together. The cooler, heavier upper layers sink down and push the warmer, lighter lower layers upward — which causes the water to heat up quickly. Have you ever tried heating water from the top and waiting for it to boil? If you’ve done that experiment, you know the layers don’t mix. The warm water layers stay still and motionless. As you know, water isn’t a good conductor of heat, and its thermal conductivity is practically negligible. You can bring the surface of the water in a container to a boil while having pieces of ice at the bottom.

But here, in zero gravity, it doesn’t matter which side you heat the water from — the layers don’t mix, so the water heats very slowly. If we want it to heat up faster, we’ll have to stir it constantly.”

Nicholl warned Ardan not to let the temperature of the water reach the boiling point but to keep it just below. He explained that at the boiling point, a large amount of steam is produced — and as he knew, in zero gravity, the specific weight of both water and steam is the same: zero. Therefore, they mix together and create foam.

As soon as Ardan opened the sealed can of peas, he was shocked — and furious. The moment he gave it a slight shake, the peas scattered in every direction through the air. They bounced off the walls and came flying back. A disaster was narrowly avoided. As Nicholl took a breath, a pea shot into his throat — and nearly choked him!

Fortunately, the danger passed. To avoid further catastrophe and rid themselves of these hazardous peas, the friends all grabbed nets and began “hunting.” Thank goodness Ardan had brought the nets — he had intended to use them “on the Moon to catch butterflies.”

Cooking under these conditions was truly a hazardous task. Ardan was right to say that even the most skilled chefs would be helpless in such a situation. He truly suffered while trying to prepare the beefsteak. He had to press the meat down into the oil with a fork, because the elastic behavior of the oil’s vapors kept pushing the half-cooked meat back up — that is, if we can even use the word "up" in a place where “up” and “down” have no real meaning.

In a weightless world, eating also presents a strange spectacle. The passengers, in various positions — some of them admittedly exaggerated on purpose — floated in the air and constantly bumped into one another. Naturally, “sitting” no longer had any meaning. Under such conditions, chairs, beds, and benches were entirely useless. In fact, Ardan’s insistence on setting up a proper "dining table" was quite unnecessary — there was no need for a table at all.

Cooking the soup was difficult — eating it even more so. Ardan couldn’t pour the weightless liquid into a plate by tilting the pot. Frustrated, and ignoring the effects of zero gravity, he tapped the bottom of the upside-down pot in an attempt to get the stubborn soup out. But with that move, he almost ruined all his efforts: a large drop, spherical in shape — which is to say, the entire soup — leapt out of the pot!Ardan was forced to perform a full act of juggling and acrobatics to get the food he had struggled so hard to prepare back into the pot.

Spoons were of no help either; the soup coated the entire bowl and handle of the spoon, clinging to it as a single sticky layer. The three friends greased their spoons with butter to prevent the soup from wetting and sticking to them — but then a new problem arose. The soup formed into small spheres, and they couldn’t manage to get the weightless liquid into their mouths.

At last, Nicholl had an idea: he rolled up some wax paper into tubes, and the crew began sucking the soup through these makeshift straws. From that point on, they even used this method to drink water.

You might be surprised and ask: in a weightless world, how can one drink anything even using such a method? Isn’t it true that the air inside the spacecraft has no weight — and therefore can’t exert pressure? In that case, how can one suck up a liquid?

But this criticism is misplaced. The truth is that the weightlessness of air in such conditions has no effect on its pressure. The air inside an enclosed space still has pressure — and this pressure isn’t due to weight, but because air, like all gases, always tends to expand. On our planet, in open spaces, the force of gravity prevents the air from expanding further .In fact, it is precisely this usual connection between weight and air pressure under Earth’s normal conditions that leads to such misunderstandings.