There’s a good chance you bought a silver foil packet of freeze-dried ice cream at a science museum gift shop and walked away feeling like you’d tasted space itself. It was crunchy, slightly chalky, and somehow thrilling. The problem? That experience had almost nothing to do with what real astronauts actually eat.
The gap between what popular culture thinks NASA feeds its crews and what actually flies into orbit has grown into something genuinely fascinating. From beef brisket heading around the moon to lettuce grown under LED lights aboard the International Space Station, the real story is stranger and more interesting than any gift shop souvenir.
The Great Astronaut Ice Cream Myth
Freeze-dried ice cream is ice cream that has had most of the water removed through a freeze-drying process. Compared to regular ice cream, it can be kept at room temperature without melting, and is dry and brittle, but still soft when bitten into. Sounds perfectly suited to space, right? It was developed by Whirlpool Corporation under contract to NASA for the Apollo missions. However, it was not used on any Apollo mission.
For a long time, people thought it had flown, because a NASA spaceflight media release reported it was included on Apollo 7. It was this release that ensured the specially freeze-dried treat would forever be called astronaut ice cream. The last surviving member of the Apollo 7 crew, Walter Cunningham, denied there was astronaut ice cream aboard the flight.
As it turns out, astronaut ice cream was created specifically for a NASA gift shop, in 1974, when the agency hired a company called Outdoor Products, which made freeze-dried foods for camping, to make this novelty product. Decades of museum visits later, the myth had completely cemented itself in public memory. The treats sold in gift shops are too crumbly to eat in microgravity.
Why Crumbs Are Actually a Serious Problem in Space
NASA wasn’t even sure if food digestion was possible without the aid of gravity, or what food would be safe for astronauts to eat in space. Loose food wouldn’t just fall to the floor like it does on Earth. Crumbs might float into the ship’s sensitive electronics, threatening the lives of everyone on board.
On Earth, crumbs may be messy, but they’re rarely a safety hazard since they fall onto your plate, the floor, or your lap with a little help from gravity. In the weightless microgravity within a spacecraft, crumbs float away and therefore have the potential to injure the crew in addition to damaging equipment.
Shelf-stable foods help manage food safety and quality throughout the intended shelf life in a compact, self-contained spacecraft, while also reducing the risk of crumbs or particulates in microgravity. This is the real reason astronaut food looks the way it does, not nostalgia or theater.
The Artemis II Menu Is Surprisingly Civilized
The four crew members of Artemis II, Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Jeremy Hansen, and Christina Koch, have a selection of 189 different menu items to choose from on their journey around the moon. That’s not survival rations. That’s a real menu.
Some of the foods available for the astronauts include wheat flat bread, vegetable quiche, breakfast sausage, couscous with nuts, mango salad, granola with blueberries, beef brisket, nuts, broccoli au gratin, macaroni and cheese, spicy green beans, and more. Naturally, there are also plenty of options for dessert, including candy-coated almonds, cake, chocolate, cobbler, cookies, and pudding.
Among the items, 58 tortillas have been packed, as well as supplies for 43 cups of coffee. Additionally, there are nine other beverage options including green tea, a strawberry, chocolate and vanilla breakfast drink, lemonade, apple cider, cocoa, a pineapple drink, and a mango-peach smoothie. Space food in 2026 is not what your ten-year-old self imagined.
Why Tortillas Are the Unofficial Food of Space Travel
Tortillas are among the most popular astronaut foods, in part because it’s simply easy to fill them, fold them up, and eat them without bits floating off in the zero-gravity environment inside a spacecraft. Bread, by contrast, has been a persistent problem since the earliest missions.
The crew of Gemini 3 infamously snuck a corned beef sandwich on their spaceflight. Mission Commander Gus Grissom loved corned beef sandwiches, so Pilot John Young brought one along. However, Young was supposed to eat only approved food, and Grissom was not supposed to eat anything at all. Floating crumbs from the bread posed a potential problem, causing Grissom to put the sandwich away, and the astronauts were mildly rebuked by NASA for the act.
Unlike bread, tortillas produce very few crumbs and are well-suited for microgravity. It’s a practical solution that has stuck around for decades, and it’s not going away anytime soon.
How Space Food Is Actually Prepared on the Orion Spacecraft
Food aboard Orion is ready-to-eat, rehydratable, thermostabilized, or irradiated. The crew uses Orion’s potable water dispenser to rehydrate foods and beverages and a compact, briefcase-style food warmer to heat meals as needed.
Fresh foods will not be flying on Artemis II, as Orion does not have refrigeration nor the late load capability required for fresh foods. Every item had to be carefully selected long before launch. The crew had direct input on the menu, including a series of taste tests, according to NASA.
The Space Food Research Facility produces heat-stabilized foods in pouches, similar to military Meals-Ready-to-Eat but developed to support the nutritional needs of astronauts in spaceflight. The infrastructure behind a single astronaut meal is genuinely substantial.
Astronaut Nutrition Is More Demanding Than You’d Think
Astronaut food must be carefully formulated to meet nutritional needs. Energy requirements are based on body size, activity level, and mission demands, with astronauts typically requiring between 2,700 and 3,700 calories per day. Nutrition planning must account for hydration, balanced nutrient intake, and food preferences, all while supporting physical and psychological health.
Biological functions change in space, including digestion, fluid distribution, bone density, muscle mass, and cardiovascular health. Daily exercise is essential to counteract microgravity-induced muscle and bone loss. Despite careful planning, astronauts often eat less than intended due to fluid shifts and altered taste perception.
A focus is being placed on ensuring astronauts receive not only the recommended levels of nutrients to support mental and physical health, but the correct amounts required for long-duration spaceflight. Research has shown that nutritional requirements change with the amount of time spent in space. For example, the recommended amount of calcium is 1,000 mg per day, rising to 1,200 mg per day in long-duration missions.
Astronauts Can Actually Grow Their Own Food Now
The Vegetable Production System, known as Veggie, is a space garden residing on the space station. Veggie’s purpose is to help NASA study plant growth in microgravity, while adding fresh food to the astronauts’ diet and enhancing happiness and well-being on the orbiting laboratory. The Veggie garden is about the size of a carry-on piece of luggage and typically holds six plants.
Researchers have successfully grown lettuces, Chinese cabbage, mustard greens, kale, tomatoes, radishes, and chile peppers in space. Expedition 44 members became the first American astronauts to eat plants grown in space on August 10, 2015, when their crop of Red Romaine was harvested. It was a genuinely historic meal.
When the Crew-11 astronauts launched to the International Space Station on August 1, 2025, they carried with them another chapter in space farming: the latest VEG-03 experiments, complete with seed pillows ready for planting. Growing plants provides nutrition for astronauts, as well as psychological benefits that help maintain crew morale during missions. During VEG-03 MNO, astronauts will be able to choose what they want to grow from a seed library including Wasabi mustard greens, Red Russian Kale, and Dragoon lettuce.
The Psychology of Eating in Space
Astronauts select roughly a fifth of their food items and beverages, while about four-fifths of their diet comes from a shared, standard set of foods. Resupply vehicles arrive several times a year, bringing some fresh fruits and vegetables and some semi-shelf-stable specialty items. Astronauts report that these deliveries provide profound psychological benefits.
Bringing along a supply of food for months or even years in space is impractical, and stored food can lose taste and nutritional value. Growing plants in space is one way to help solve this problem. Tending space gardens also has positive psychological effects for crew members, and plants can be part of life support systems that provide services such as producing oxygen and reducing carbon dioxide.
The food system is currently considered a red risk by NASA for exploration missions, meaning that there is not currently an adequate food system strategy available that will support the constraints and timelines of these missions. That’s a frank admission, and it helps explain why so much research is currently focused on this area.
International Cuisine Is Making It to Orbit
In April 2021, French astronaut Thomas Pesquet brought with him on SpaceX Crew-2 a few signature French dishes to share with his fellow astronauts, including a space-safe version of beef bourguignon, einkorn risotto, and crêpe Suzette. Space food has become something of a quiet cultural exchange program.
Specially for IGNIS, the first Polish mission to the International Space Station, the commercial company LYOFOOD, in collaboration with the European Space Agency, developed a Bonus Food menu of freeze-dried signature Polish meals. The menu includes pierogi stuffed with cabbage and mushrooms, tomato soup with noodles, Polish leczo stew with buckwheat, and apple crumble for dessert.
Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen also has five Canadian food products to remind him of home, according to the Canadian Space Agency. These include wild keta salmon bites, shrimp curry, strawberry lavender superseed cereal, maple cream cookies, and yes, maple syrup. Comfort food turns out to matter just as much at 250 miles above Earth as it does anywhere else.
What’s Next: Feeding Astronauts on the Way to Mars
Artemis II menus reflect decades of advancement in space food systems. Apollo missions relied on early food technologies with limited variety, while space shuttle missions expanded menu options and onboard preparation. Still, the challenges ahead are considerably larger than anything faced so far.
Where a mission to Mars will last about 1,000 days, the military limits the use of meals ready to eat to just 21 consecutive days. That comparison puts the Mars food problem in sharp perspective. Currently there are no capabilities to grow food in space at the levels needed to provide adequate caloric and nutritional intake. Therefore, astronauts rely on a shelf-stable food system that fits within the mass, volume, shelf-life, and other limitations of the vehicle.
Dr. Grace Douglas, lead scientist for NASA’s Advanced Food Technology at the Johnson Space Center, shares the challenges of supplying food for a trip to Mars, describing the importance of variety, preservation, and farming. Those three words essentially define the entire frontier of space food science heading into the next decade of deep-space exploration.
Conclusion
The distance between “astronaut ice cream” and what NASA actually puts on the menu today is a useful measure of how far human spaceflight has come. NASA says the menu options available for the Artemis II crew reflect decades of advancement in space food systems. Apollo missions relied on early food technologies with limited variety, while space shuttle missions expanded menu options and onboard preparation. The International Space Station benefits from regular resupply and occasional fresh foods.
The freeze-dried novelty in a silver pouch made for a great childhood memory. The real meal plan, built around beef brisket, freshly grown kale, and maple syrup heading around the moon, turns out to be a much better story. What astronauts eat has always reflected what we know, what we can carry, and what keeps people whole far from home. That challenge hasn’t gotten simpler. It’s just gotten more interesting.
