The meticulous menu has been \u201cdesigned to support crew health and performance,\u201d NASA said. Because there is no resupply, refrigeration or late-load options for this mission, all of the meals are shelf-stable and easily prepared in \u201cmicrogravity\u201d with minimal crumbs.<\/p>\n
The menu highlighted some of the most common food items on board the spacecraft, including 58 tortillas<\/a>.<\/p>\n “[Tortillas] have long been a practical staple in spaceflight because they are versatile, easy to eat in microgravity, and create far fewer crumbs than bread,” Victoria Segovia, a NASA public affairs specialist, told PEOPLE in an email. “Tortillas can also be paired with a wide range of foods, which gives the crew flexibility and variety across meals.”<\/p>\n Other common items featured included breakfast goods like breakfast sausage, wheat flat bread, vegetable quiche and granola with blueberries. Entr\u00e9e items like barbecued beef brisket, broccoli au gratin, mac and cheese and spicy green beans are also on board.<\/p>\n The astronauts won\u2019t be lacking in fruits and vegetables, as the menu features mango salad, a tropical fruit salad, butternut squash and cauliflower.<\/p>\n The Artemis II menu Per NASA\u2019s website, the astronauts are scheduled time to eat three meals each day (excluding launch and re-entry days).<\/p>\n They each get two flavored beverages a day, including coffee. The crew will consume 43 cups of coffee altogether in the 10-day mission, according to NASA.<\/p>\n While NASA noted that beverage options are limited due to restrictions on the amount of food and drink that can be on board, the astronauts can take their pick from over 10 drinks.<\/p>\n Mango-peach smoothies, chocolate breakfast drinks and cocoa are just a few of the varied options astronauts can choose from. The dessert options are widespread as well, from pudding to cobbler to cake to candy-coated almonds. The majority of desserts, however, are cookies and chocolate, NASA noted.<\/p>\n Meals can be topped with either one of the five different types of hot sauce they have on the spacecraft or other spreads and sauces like maple syrup, spicy mustard, peanut butter and honey.<\/p>\n The meals onboard are either ready-to-eat, rehydratable, thermostabilized or irradiated (exposed to ionizing radiation to become sterilized). The crew can rehydrate them with Orion\u2019s potable water dispenser and a compact food warmer as needed, NASA said.<\/p>\n The website noted that the selections of the menu items are made by \u201cspace food experts\u201d alongside the crew, noting caloric and nutrient intake needs, hydration and crew preferences.<\/p>\n “Personal preference plays an important role in menu planning because familiar foods can help support morale, variety, and overall menu acceptability during the mission. At the same time, every item still has to meet the mission\u2019s nutritional, food safety, and operational requirements,” Segovia told PEOPLE.<\/p>\n The Artemis II crew will have three meals for each routine day on the mission Crew members sampled and evaluated the foods during preflight testing, NASA said on the website.<\/p>\n Xulei Wu, the Artemis\u2019 Food System Manager, said in a NASA Johnson video<\/a> that most of the food is made and packaged in the food lab at the Johnson Space Center, following “strict steps” to ensure it’s consistent and meets requirements.<\/p>\n She said food is important not just for nutrition, but for \u201cmorale.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cEating together really resonates with me. I think it\u2019s just a human thing,” Artemis II crew member Jeremy Hansen<\/a> said in the video.<\/p>\n \u201cIt represents togetherness and something a little out of the ordinary,\u201d fellow crew member Christina Koch<\/a> added. \u201cIt\u2019s like a camping trip.\u201d<\/p>\n In selecting the menu, NASA also had to account for the ship\u2019s mass, volume and power requirements, the website said.<\/p>\n Online reactions<\/a> were generally positive to the menu, with many joking that the astronauts are eating better than the commenters.<\/p>\n \u201cHonestly this looks better than what I feed myself on Earth,\u201d one person wrote.<\/p>\n NASA noted that Artemis II menus differ from the Apollo missions after \u201cdecades of advancement in space food systems.\u201d The options are also different than those of the International Space Station, which receives resupplies and occasionally, fresh foods.<\/p>\n Artemis II launched<\/a> in the Orion spacecraft on April 1, 2026 from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Fla., with a plan to travel around the far side of the moon and back in 10 days.<\/p>\n The last time astronauts went to the moon was in 1972 in Apollo 17<\/a>, and Artemis II<\/a> marks the first crewed flight test of both the Orion around the moon and the Space Launch System deep-space rocket. Artemis II\u2019s goal is to confirm the operations of the spacecraft in deep space ahead of planned future expeditions to the moon.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1443c3db9d232c506b7e55025ffc23f5.jpeg\"\/)
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Credit: NASA<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/d3787c6363a93e2c99996b11fcc18e2b.jpeg\"\/)
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Credit: Paul Hennessy\/Anadolu via Getty<\/p>\n