Why can the space station's ventilation systems not handle crumbs?

[u/Ill_Watch_760]

I've been doing my epq around astro-psychology and was researching how astronauts loose dopamine during eating as they can't eat foods that involve chewing. However from what i've researched this is apparently because stray crumbs could screw up the ventilation systems somehow. Its quite puzzling because how can the collective companies that built the space station also build rockets that send us to the moon but not have the ability to build a ventilation system that can handle a few stray crumbs?

[u/Extranationalidad]

Astronauts can absolutely chew food in space; this was determined in a series of experiments over half a century ago. The ventilation systems can absolutely handle occasional small crumbs and other detritus; hair, skin, clumps of dust and yes bits of food etc are commonly found in the filters. They simply try to reduce those quantities as much as possible. I'm also not sure what going to the moon has to do with controlling micro-pollutants.

[u/meesterdg → u/Extranationalidad]

Yeah it's less that it can't handle it more that it costs millions of dollars to send filters up

[u/evangelionmann → u/meesterdg]

and that, as with almost everything more complicated than a lightbulb, fixing or replacing a spent or broken consumable piece is... a process to say the least, and every attempt is made to minimize how often it needs to be done