Bad food can cause serious trouble aboard a ship because the crew must live with it throughout a deployment. Highly selected astronauts are used as a contrast with the larger crews imagined for regular future voyages between Earth and Mars. In that hypothetical setting, the argument is that food would acquire the same importance it has aboard merchant ships and submarines. The cook's influence follows from that dependence, giving a person outside the formal command hierarchy considerable power over morale.
Notable Point · 38:46-40:10
Long deployments make the ship's cook central to morale
Food becomes a persistent command concern when crews spend long periods aboard, with the cook acquiring considerable informal influence.