A look at the foods eaten by astronauts during and after the space race

Muted smell and taste in microgravity complicate meal enjoyment

Astronauts primarily consume freeze-dried meals, which are rehydrated with water recycled from urine and perspiration, directly from bags. Condiments and select cultural items from crew members can enhance the meal experience by boosting flavor. Many individuals report experiencing "food fatigue" due to a lack of fresh produce, limited menu variety, and lingering scents.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

John Glenn's Friendship 7 flight finally put the US in orbit in February 1962

After the Soviets took the lead in the space race, John Glenn's three-orbit Friendship 7 mission on February 20, 1962, made him the first American to orbit Earth. This NASA anniversary piece delivers a minute-by-minute account—from launch delays to splashdown and recovery.

Astronauts exercise on the International Space Station

Astronauts maintain bone, muscle, and cardiovascular health with physical activity. It's crucial astronauts make time to exercise for approximately two hours per day. This resource offers a behind-the-scenes look at how high-intensity workouts help prevent muscle atrophy, bone density loss, and aerobic decline during months-long space missions.

The animals that paved the way for space travel

The history of animals in space exploration is often overlooked. Before humans first made their way to space in 1961, fruit flies, primates, and canines preceded us. Watch this video for a further appreciation of the contributions and sacrifices made by animals for scientific progress.

Drugs in space: the pharmacy orbiting the Earth

Researchers are developing pharmaceutical solutions for astronauts, whose bodies may not respond the same way in space as they would on Earth. Similar to how microgravity causes changes to astronaut physiology, the environmental shift enables new...

How to make a burrito in space

Just because you’re living at the International Space Station doesn’t mean your cravings disappear. In this video, Chef Traci Des Jardins explains the best way to make a burrito while experiencing microgravity.

In 2001, Pizza Hut became the first company to deliver pizza to space

The chain paid the Russian space agency nearly $1M for the promotional stunt, which saw a Russian cosmonaut eat the pizza on video. Other unusual objects to make it to the International Space Station include a gorilla suit, an espresso machine, and several musical instruments.

View a collection of digital museum resources about the Apollo program

Created by the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, this collection includes detailed biographies of astronauts and scientists who worked on the program and interactive features on the technologies that made it possible.

What was the Space Race?

​Want to know more about the Space Race? This article from the National Air and Space Museum dives into this intense Cold War competition between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. Explore how the race transitioned from military rivalry to a quest for space exploration dominance, leading to milestones like the first satellite, Sputnik, and the iconic Apollo 11 Moon landing.

What Americans ate after WWII

Returning from World War II, the American cultural landscape saw a vast number of changes. Cuisine, in particular, diversified and modernized thanks to traveled soldiers and wartime innovation. From inventions like powdered cheese to the popularization of instant coffee and Chinese food, explore the changes to the American food industry that continue to influence what we consume today.

Eleven deaf men played a pivotal role in America's human spaceflight program

In the mid-20th century, 11 deaf men volunteered for a series of experiments that offered unprecedented insights into the effects of weightlessness on the human body. Most of the men had become deaf in early childhood as a result of spinal meningitis, a condition known to damage the vestibular system and make them less susceptible to motion sickness. For a decade, these men participated in extreme motion sickness situations, including living in a slowly spinning room, spending time in centrifuge pods designed to simulate hypergravity, and flying in parabolic flights sometimes referred to as the "Vomit Comet." (Some users may experience a paywall.)

The first chess game in space ended in a draw in 1970

Soviet cosmonauts Andriyan Nikolayev and Vitaly Sevastyanov played a game of chess against mission control while orbiting Earth aboard Soyuz 9 in 1970. The match ended in a draw—the first recorded game in space.

The space race of the 21st century is focused on a permanent lunar outpost

After decades of dormancy, NASA and SpaceX hope the Artemis program will provide opportunities for lunar resource extraction. Countries like India, China, and the UAE have also shown interest in developing future lunar economies.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

30 everyday inventions originally created for space

In their pioneering work to develop the technologies necessary for humans to inhabit space, NASA and its counterpart agencies around the world have produced dozens of products millions of people use everyday. Some of these are obvious, like water filtration systems and wireless headsets, while many are surprising, like artificial limbs and insulin pumps. Dive into the list here.

Read a firsthand account of a participant in the first Biosphere 2 mission

The first crew of “Biospherians” spent four months growing their own wheat and awaiting the ripening of tomatoes, onions, and peppers to make their own pizza. They also raised their own livestock, including chickens, pigs, and two goats named Milky Way and Stardust.

The evolution of spacesuit design

Spacesuits have come a long way since cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin's orange jumpsuit used in the world's first entry into space in 1960. The iconic outfit is a crucial feature of all space exploration, ensuring humans are protected during launch, spacewalks, re-entry, and more. From innovations in thermal wear to the incremental changes to space helmets, dive into spacesuit history here.

The cuisine of the Mount Everest base camps

Depending on their budget, Mount Everest climbers are either eating canned meats and hearty vegetables or a more elaborate menu with additions like protein powder and chia seeds. Fresh food flies to the base camp every day by helicopter.

Apollo astronauts left items in the moon's 'toss zone,' including golf balls, family photos, and bags of human waste, to make room for lunar rocks.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a group of young men ate standard American food—replete with food additives like borax and formaldehyde—as part of government research to better understand food safety.

The story of the 1945 Minnesota Starvation Experiment

Amid the severe conditions of World War II, researchers were eager to learn the effects of starvation in a controlled study. This podcast dives into a yearlong study of 36 men at a Minneapolis college who endured a six-month period of semi-starvation, where their caloric intake was halved. Results from the experiment became a landmark study in human starvation.

Faulty wiring and flammable materials caused a fire in the Apollo 1 command module

During a launch rehearsal test on Jan. 27, 1967, the fire took the lives of astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. The tragedy led to improvements to CM construction and the development of a single-piece hatch for escapes.

'On the return trip home, gazing through 240,000 miles of space toward the stars and the planet from which I had come, I suddenly experienced the universe as intelligent, loving, harmonious..'

-Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell, in "The Way of the Explorer"

What did it take to eat like a gladiator?

If you think gladiators were all rippling muscle, think again. Evidence suggests fighters weren't as cut as we've been led to believe. This article dives into the diets of ancient Roman gladiators, who may have eaten mostly vegetarian. Archaeological evidence gathered from the skeletons of 68 gladiators found in a 2,000-year-old Turkish grave suggests the fighters' diets mainly relied on barley and legumes, with little animal protein.

How SpaceX Made Space Affordable

SpaceX has cut launch costs by over 95%—from $54,000 per kilogram to around $2,000—reshaping how we access space.

Unpacking Thoreau's diet, which once included a woodchuck

The writer's diet was notoriously simple, preferring an inexpensive combination of rice and vegetables to meat, though he usually ate it when offered. In "Walden," he mentions eating a woodchuck after it got into his beans, which one Thoreau biographer said was likely true.

Astronauts have repaired genetic damage in space using CRISPR—a molecular tool that can make precise changes to DNA and is used in single-celled organisms to attack invasive viruses.

Before launching his cereal company, John Harvey Kellogg promoted natural food at a sanitarium

Kellogg was the director of the Battle Creek Sanitarium, a health resort in Michigan, where he served patients vegetarian dishes, including early experiments with meat substitutes. Kellogg espoused a philosophy of "Biologic Living," which suggested consuming natural food would lead to "racial hygiene" for white Americans, a tenet of the eugenics movement.

After NASA's Voyager 1 captured Earth as a single pixel as it left the solar system in 1990, astronomer Carl Sagan used the image to reflect on humanity's fragility and the responsibility to protect 'the only world we've ever known.'

Explore the known asteroids, comets, and spacecraft involved in asteroid studies within our solar system with 'Eyes on Asteroids,' a 3D visualization from NASA.

The history of many kitchen appliances involves unexpected discoveries and applications, including wartime radar turned hamster defroster and replacing an 'ice king' with heat-stealing boxes.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

Against his wishes, Albert Einstein's brain was removed before his cremation, and the pathologist responsible stored it for decades in mason jars within a beer cooler.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

'Shogun,' a 1980s TV series, helped popularize sushi in the US by stimulating an American interest in Japanese culture.

SpaceX's S-1 or 'prospectus' revealed many previously unknown details about the company, including its unprofitability despite doing $18.7B in revenue in 2025, exactly how many voting shares Elon Musk will have in the company (roughly 85%), and more.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

One disco producer saw 'Star Wars' four times on its opening weekend and was so inspired that he recorded the album 'Star Wars and Other Intergalactic Funk,' which produced a chart-topping single.

Sunflowers have long been a symbol of nuclear disarmament because they can extract large amounts of radioactive cesium from soil.

In 1984, Operation Smash Hit intentionally crashed a 239-ton train into a nuclear waste canister at 100 miles per hour to prove the canister's safety, which remained completely intact and lost just 0.29 of its 100 pounds of pressure.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

Telehealth demand for GLP-1s for weight loss is booming as consumers seek easier access.

Double world record holder Hunter Ewen helped conquer his fear of balloons, called globophobia, by training to win Guinness World Record titles for balloon inflation.

Before the current East Wing ballroom project, only two White House renovations in the past 100 years cost more than $10M.

Stanford built a Google Maps for the Roman Empire, revealing how much it cost to travel in the ancient world

When caught in the mouths of cardinal fish, seed shrimp release glowing, bioluminescent chemicals, which alert predators of the cardinal fish, prompting the shrimp's ejection.

The boiling temperature of water decreases with increasing elevation because the molecules need less energy to overcome the lower atmospheric pressure associated with thinner air.