The Artemis II mission to the Moon has reignited humanity’s desire for exploration and renewed our perspective of Earth. It has also revived our fascination with space food.

As space missions become longer and more ambitious, food in space has emerged as a crucial priority, intrinsically linked to brain health, culture, sustainability and agriculture.

These challenges are driving innovation, inspiring practical solutions for life both on Earth and beyond.

The race to the Moon and beyond is accelerating. Some say it’s for the benefit of all humanity. But is it really? In this seven-part series, we explore what our future in space will look like, how we might travel and survive out there, and what’s needed to stop a catastrophe from happening.

Once an engineering problem

In the early days of human space travel, eating was treated largely as an engineering problem rather than an aesthetic one. Astronauts survived on pureed meals squeezed from aluminium tubes, and on freeze-dried cubes.

In 1973, Skylab, the United States’ first experimental space station in low Earth orbit, introduced the first truly functional space galley allowing for the preparation and cooking of meals.

Since then nutrition and food have remained secondary concerns, often reduced to issues of mass and storage........

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