As humanity prepares to return to the Moon, attention is turning not only to rockets and spacecraft, but also to something far more familiar: food.
NASA has unveiled the full meal plan for Artemis II, offering a detailed look at how astronauts will eat, drink, and stay healthy during their historic 10-day journey around the far side of the Moon.
A menu built for space and survival
The Artemis II crew menu includes 189 unique food items, all carefully selected to support crew health, performance, and morale in deep space. With no possibility of resupply, refrigeration, or last-minute food additions, every meal must be shelf-stable and easy to prepare in microgravity.
NASA says the menu has been engineered to minimize crumbs, reduce waste, and meet strict nutritional standards, while still offering variety and comfort to the four astronauts on board.
Tortillas take center stage
One standout item dominates the menu: tortillas. The spacecraft carries 58 tortillas, a long-time favorite in space missions.
According to NASA officials, tortillas are practical because they are easy to handle in microgravity, produce far fewer crumbs than bread, and can be paired with a wide range of foods. This flexibility allows astronauts to create different meals without adding complexity.
What astronauts eat for breakfast
Breakfast options are designed to be filling and nutritious. The menu includes breakfast sausage, wheat flatbread, vegetable quiche, and granola with blueberries. These items provide sustained energy to support demanding daily schedules in space.
Astronauts are scheduled to eat three meals per day on routine mission days, excluding launch and re-entry.
Lunch, dinner, and comfort food
Main entrée options reflect decades of progress in space food technology. Astronauts will enjoy items such as barbecued beef brisket, mac and cheese, broccoli au gratin, spicy green beans, and cauliflower. The menu also includes mango salad, tropical fruit salad, butternut squash, and other fruits and vegetables to maintain balanced nutrition.
NASA officials emphasized that meals are either ready-to-eat, rehydratable, thermostabilized, or irradiated for safety. Food can be prepared using Orion’s potable water dispenser and a compact onboard food warmer.
Coffee, drinks, and desserts in orbit
Coffee remains a must, even in deep space. The Artemis II crew will drink a total of 43 cups of coffee during the mission. Each astronaut is allocated two flavored beverages per day, with choices including mango-peach smoothies, chocolate breakfast drinks, cocoa, and other options.
Dessert lovers are also covered. The menu features pudding, cobbler, cake, candy-coated almonds, cookies, and chocolate. To enhance flavors, astronauts can choose from five different hot sauces, along with maple syrup, spicy mustard, peanut butter, and honey.
Food as fuel and morale booster
NASA says menu planning balances nutrition, safety, and personal preference. Astronauts sampled and evaluated foods during preflight testing to ensure acceptability.
Food experts at the Johnson Space Center prepared and packaged most of the meals under strict quality controls. Mission planners also had to account for spacecraft mass, volume, and power limitations when finalizing the menu.
Crew members have highlighted the emotional importance of meals in space. Eating together, they say, provides a sense of normalcy and togetherness during an extraordinary mission.
Meet the Artemis II crew
The Artemis II mission includes Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, Christina Koch, and Jeremy Hansen. The crew launched aboard the Orion spacecraft on April 1, 2026, from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
A milestone mission for lunar exploration
Artemis II marks the first crewed flight of Orion around the Moon and the first time humans will travel beyond low Earth orbit since Apollo 17 in 1972. Unlike the International Space Station, which receives regular resupply missions, Artemis II astronauts must rely entirely on what they bring with them.
NASA officials say the upgraded menu reflects decades of innovation in space food systems and represents a major improvement over early Apollo-era meals.
As Artemis II journeys around the Moon and back, the carefully curated menu will play a quiet but vital role, keeping astronauts nourished, energized, and connected to life on Earth while paving the way for future lunar missions.
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