What NASA Astronauts Are Eating This Year

Thanksgiving dinner in space sounds a bit fancier than a standard meal on Earth. Quail, seafood and pumpkin spice cappuccino are on the menu this year for the seven-person crew of the International Space Station. That might sound lavish, but astronauts have to make culinary compromises. They can’t just whip a whole turkey out of a space oven.

NASA shared a Thanksgiving greeting from up in orbit on Wednesday. NASA astronauts Jasmin Moghbeli and Loral O’Hara shared a mic with European Space Agency astronaut Andreas Mogensen and Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Satoshi Furukawa.

The astronauts talked about what they’re thankful for, including their view of Earth from above. There was a serious side to the message.“We would also like to recognize that not everyone celebrates Thanksgiving in the same way,” said O’Hara. “While this is a time for gratitude, it’s also an opportunity to reflect on our history and remember those who might not get to go home for Thanksgiving or enjoy Thanksgiving dinner.”

The crew showed off some of the foods they’ll be eating, including roast turkey, canned cranberry sauce, butternut squash, corn and a cranberry-apple dessert. None of these items (other than the canned sauce) look like something you’d see on a table down on the planet. They were all packaged up in small plastic bags. It’s not the most appetizing food presentation you’ll ever see.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of Thanksgiving in space. NASA traces the first crew celebration of Thanksgiving to 1973 when astronauts on the Skylab space station marked the holiday. That crew didn’t have any special Thanksgiving-themed food items for dinner, however.

True to the station’s name, there’s an international crew currently on board. Mogensen is from Denmark. Moghbeli was born in Germany, but calls Baldwin, New York her hometown. O’Hara hails from Texas. Furukawa is Japanese. Konstantin Borisov, Oleg Kononenko and Nikolai Chub are Russian cosmonauts with the Roscosmos space agency. They all get to take Thursday off, though.

NASA went into more detail on the Thanksgiving meal in an ISS update on Wednesday, adding quail, seafood, chocolate, pumpkin spice cappuccino, rice cake and mochi to the list. Some menu items veer from the regular U.S. Thanksgiving fare. Those are likely special requests from the astronauts. “Crew preference is also considered when planning festive meals in space,” the agency noted.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are a rare treat on the ISS. Much of the crew’s food has to be in a stable form to make it through spaceflight and stay edible up in orbit. Packaging is also important. The crew doesn’t want leftovers floating away and gumming up the works. Still, space cuisine has come a long way from the early days of off-planet sustenance. Check out this Apollo-era turkey sandwich kit:

NASA said the kit “might not seem like much of a Thanksgiving dinner, but it was a major improvement over NASA’s earlier astronaut food, mostly squeezed from tubes.” Compared to that sandwich of yesteryear, today’s ISS astronauts are in for a tremendous Thanksgiving treat.

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