Maintaining a balanced diet can be hard enough on Earth, but it's even more difficult in space — especially when you're talking about long-haul missions. Although space-based agriculture has made strides in recent years, growing fresh crops in space is no easy feat, and each bit of food or water stored in a spacecraft adds mass, thus weighing down the vessel during its journey out of orbit.
Scientists recently studied possible nutrient-dense meals fit for long-term space travel, such as potential Mars missions, that both satisfy astronauts' nutritional needs and taste better than existing alternatives. They tested 10 dishes to see which would be the optimal meal for male astronauts; they plan to specifically study meals for female astronauts in the future. The best meal would help space travelers get the calories and variety of nutrients they need during their odysseys and use crops that could be grown in space with minimal water.
