The Future of Food: The History of and Recent Advancement in Space Food

A typical meal in space in the eighties. Photo credit: NASA (UC Science Today) When most of us think of space food, what comes to mind are probably those silver packets of freeze-dried ice cream you find in science center gift shops. Surprisingly, freeze-dried ice cream only made it to space once, on the Apollo 7 mission in 1968 [1]. Although at one time this may have resembled what astronauts actually ate in space, the development of space food has advanced light years since then (pun intended).