Rita Rapp (June 25, 1928 - July 12, 1989) was an American physiologist who led the Apollo Food System team. She won a

NASA Exceptional Service Medal The NASA Exceptional Service Medal is an award granted to U.S. government employees for significant sustained performance characterized by unusual initiative or creative ability that clearly demonstrates substantial improvement in engineering, ae ...

, the

United States Civil Service Commission The United States Civil Service Commission was a government agency of the federal government of the United States and was created to select employees of federal government on merit rather than relationships. In 1979, it was dissolved as part of t ...

Federal Woman's Award and

University of Dayton The University of Dayton (UD) is a private, Catholic research university in Dayton, Ohio. Founded in 1850 by the Society of Mary, it is one of three Marianist universities in the nation and the second-largest private university in Ohio. The univ ...

Distinguished Alumni Award. A plaque in her honor remains at the Johnson Space Center.

Early life and education

Rapp was born in

Piqua, Ohio Piqua ( ) is a city in Miami County, southwest Ohio, United States, 27 miles north of Dayton. The population was 20,522 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Dayton Metropolitan Statistical Area. It was founded as the village of Washington in ...

. She attended Piqua Catholic High School. She completed a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

from the

in 1950. She was one of the first women to join the

Saint Louis University School of Medicine Saint Louis University School of Medicine is a private, Jesuit medical school. Part of Saint Louis University, the institution was established in 1836. The school has an enrollment of around 700, with about 550 faculty members and 550 residents in ...

, and graduated in 1953. She completed her graduate research and physiology training at the

University of Giessen University of Giessen, official name Justus Liebig University Giessen (german: Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen), is a large public research university in Giessen, Hesse, Germany. It is named after its most famous faculty member, Justus von ...

Career

Rapp joined

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) is a United States Air Force base and census-designated place just east of Dayton, Ohio, in Greene and Montgomery counties. It includes both Wright and Patterson Fields, which were originally Wilbur Wr ...

in 1953, where she worked in the aeromedical laboratories. She studied the impact of high g-forces on the human body. In 1960 Rapp joined the

Space Task Group The Space Task Group was a working group of NASA engineers created in 1958, tasked with managing America's human spaceflight programs. Headed by Robert Gilruth and based at the Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, it managed Project Me ...

and worked on centrifugal affects. After the Apollo program began in 1966, Rapp joined the Apollo Food Systems team, looking at the stowage of food in space. She worked with

Whirlpool Corporation The Whirlpool Corporation is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of home appliances, headquartered in Benton Charter Township, Michigan, United States. The Fortune 500 company has annual revenue of approximately $21 billion, ...

and dietitians to identify ways space food could be packaged and prepared. She was the main interface between the food lab and the astronauts. She tried to use as much commercially available food as possible. Astronauts requested pumpkin pie and trail mix, but their favorite food was cream of chicken soup. Her

sugar cookie A sugar cookie is a cookie with the main ingredients being sugar, flour, butter, eggs, vanilla, and either baking powder or baking soda (depending on the type of sugar used). Sugar cookies may be formed by hand, dropped, or rolled and cut in ...

s were especially prized by the onboard crew. She prepared the individual meals of each Apollo astronaut separately and they each used color-coded eating utensils. She moved to the

Manned Spacecraft Center The Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center (JSC) is NASA's center for human spaceflight (originally named the Manned Spacecraft Center), where human spaceflight training, research, and flight control are conducted. It was renamed in honor of the late U ...

(now Johnson Space Center) in 1962. In 1971 she was awarded the

Federal Woman's Award for her "extraordinary contributions to the Apollo program". She was the first woman from the

to be selected for the award; which was the highest honor of the federal government. Her developments were popular beyond

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil List of government space agencies, space program ...

and used in the commercial food market. When

Skylab Skylab was the first United States space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three separate three-astronaut crews: Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4. Major operations ...

began in 1973, Rapp led a 30 person team. During Skylab, Rapp determined that astronauts need to consume about 3,000 calories a day. She was the first woman to win the Research & Development Associates For Military Food & Packaging Systems Isker award in 1975 in recognition of her contributions to food preparation and container research. She contributed to the

Apollo–Soyuz Test Project Apollo–Soyuz was the first crewed international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union in July 1975. Millions of people around the world watched on television as a United States Apollo spacecraft docked ...

Report in 1977. In 1980 Rapp won the

Distinguished Alumni Award. She was awarded a

in 1981. She preserved foods using dehydration, thermostabilization, irradiation and moisture control. In 1986 she published Space Shuttle Food-System Summary with Connie Stadler. Rapp died on July 12, 1989, after a long illness. She was recognized as a space food pioneer. There is a collection of files relating to Rapp at the Piqua Library. Her biography appeared in Libby Jackson's ''A Galaxy of Her Own: Amazing Stories of Women in Space''. A plaque that recognizes Rapp's commitment to the safety, health and comfort of the

flight crew, hangs at Johnson Space Center.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rapp, Rita 1928 births 1989 deaths University of Dayton alumni Saint Louis University alumni People from Piqua, Ohio Space scientists Women space scientists American physiologists American women physiologists 20th-century American scientists 20th-century American women scientists Scientists from Ohio NASA people University of Giessen alumni