Space Cuisine

Our brave human crew members onboard the UIC Tabitha (and other human starships) need to eat to stay strong and healthy. It would be an abrupt, anticlimactic ending if the whole crew died of starvation. But what exactly do our crew members eat?

Depending on player choices in episode 1, Mayvheen can be seen with a protein bar snack at the start of Episode 2. You can’t live on snacks alone, so we had to go do some research.

Astronauts on the ISS eat somewhat regular food, and each astronaut consumes roughly 5 KG of supplies a day (1KG Oxygen, 1KG dehydrated food, and 3KG of water for drinking and hydrating food). For Apollo missions, astronauts could pick their preferred food from a pre-approved list. Their selection would then be compiled into balanced meals and sent into space with them. Since the ISS is ‘easily’ reached for a resupply, we don’t have to plan too far ahead. (The ISS is resupplied every 3 months, and does cater for a small margin of error)

But what would space food look like in the future?

Not much different from what we are eating right now. From my research, there will be a lot less meat, especially on longer journeys lasting more than a year or two. For shorter journeys where the food can remain stable, we’ll continue to employ mostly dehydrated food. Longer journeys pose a greater challenge, as food will likely need to be grown locally. This means that vegan diets are a logical option, but will likely affect morale in the long run. Humans like diversity and this is no different when it comes to our food.

After taking all of this into consideration, human ships that embark on longer journeys will likely have a similar approach to self-sufficient generational ships.

This leads us to what the crew on the UIC Tabitha eats. Their diet is mostly fruit and vegetables grown in the small aeroponics section. When employing aeroponics you need a lot less space. (Using some internet math, while taking crop rotation into account 1x km2 of sweet potatoes can feed 2.3k people for a year. With hydroponics, this increases to 13k people. With refined aeroponics, this again increases to 49K people. The UIC Tabitha currently has 729 crew members, with a maximum capacity at around 900.)

By employing aeroponics on the starship, a lot of floor space is freed up to allow for more diversity in food types. Other than sweet and normal potatoes, crew members will have access to tomatoes and other fresh veggies. The abundance of oxygen provided by the algae tanks and aeroponic plants will also be used to maintain a small rodent and poultry population for meat. Lastly, a selection of fish is also kept in the aeroponic and algae water tanks. Due to most of these systems needing gravity to function optimally (Chickens and other birds are fine in space, but hatching their eggs can be problematic. Fish also have a hard time surviving in microgravity) - the aeroponics section has artificial gravity.

From there the food is distributed to the meal preparation stations. There is a wide variety of recipes and food combinations to keep things fresh and interesting. After the cooks prepare the food, it is available for consumption in the mess halls according to the schedule set by the captain.

The crew is also provided with other treats and rations that aren’t produced on the ship itself. Crew members can collect their monthly allotment of treats and rations from the quartermaster. Higher ranking officers are allowed to have a preference on what their hamper’s contents look like, but few officers take advantage of this out of respect for the rest of the crew.