Feature

Space Eats

Astronaut journey to Mars requires new age nibbles

By Alexandra Witze

- More than 2 years ago

Even an Iron Chef couldn’t master what a food-centric cadre of NASA scientists do every day: Devise tasty, healthy meals for astronauts to take into low-Earth orbit and beyond — perhaps even to Mars.

Lettuce and chard are among crops tested at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida for future space gardens. NASA Kennedy Space Center
Packaged foods such as this shrimp fried rice get high marks for taste, but weight makes them costly to launch.