• Question: What's the food like on the spacecraft?

    Asked by Milly and Emily to Anne, Beth, COLFlight, Jon, Tom on 4 Oct 2015. This question was also asked by Emz, RosieHarper2001, curlygirl, yah its salehaa, Padfoot, 8P form.
    • Photo: Beth Healey

      Beth Healey answered on 4 Oct 2015:

      Probably better than here!! We haven’t had any fresh fruit or vegetables for over 9 months!! 🙂

    • Photo: Columbus Flight Directors

      Columbus Flight Directors answered on 4 Oct 2015:

      COL FD (Simon): Hi Milly and Emily! I love food questions! Back in the 60’s Astronauts really did need to eat out of tubes in space. These days things are getting pretty sophisticated! Alot of the food is still freeze-dried in plastic food ration packs but today in space it is even possible to eat Mexican food! Checkout Samantha Cristoforettis novel tortilla recipe:

      However fresh fruit and vegetables are still a rarity but luckily astronauts on the space station get deliveries from Earth on a fairly regular basis (once every 2 or 3 months) – actually more often than poor Beth in Antartica…

      One of the big research goals of the ISS is to learn how to grow fresh food in space for long duration missions like a trip to Mars. A few weeks ago the astronauts on-board actually ate a red romaine lettuce that was grown in the Columbus Module. Check them out eating a leaf each whilst in Columbus ;-):

    • Photo: Jonathan Scott

      Jonathan Scott answered on 7 Oct 2015:

      Hi Milly and Emily

      As Simon said, space food has improved a lot and this is really important as we need to make astronauts eat enough. Living in microgravity causes your muscles and bones to grow weaker, and this is why astronauts currently perform lots of exercise in space. However, the exercise uses up a lot of energy and if we don’t put that energy back in (by eating enough food) then this can cause further problems for muscles and bones. So making sure space tastes good and has plenty of variety is really important to ensure astronauts enjoy eating it and so eat enough.

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