The Artemis II mission launched from NASA‘s Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday, propelling four astronauts on a journey around the moon. As Artemis II crew astronauts, Mission Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, Mission Specialist Christina Koch and Canadian Space Agency’s Jeremy Hansen left for their mission around the Moon, NASA revealed a detailed list of a 189-item menu.
NASA’s official X handle shared a post along with the caption, “Artemis II: What’s on the Menu? Brisket and cobbler and quiche, oh my! Curious what astronauts eat on a 10-day trip around the Moon? Read about how we design and prepare meal plans for Artemis II”
GODSPEED. 🚀🇺🇸 https://t.co/DfjRawpWt8
— The White House (@WhiteHouse) April 1, 2026
In an article titled ‘Artemis II: What’s on the Menu?’ NASA revealed everything available on the space platter, from ready-to-eats to rehydratables, to thermostabilized items, and even irradiated.
An excerpt from the menu details published by NASA read, “The food flying aboard Artemis II is designed to support crew health and performance during the mission around the Moon. With no resupply, refrigeration, or late-load capability, all meals must be carefully selected to remain safe, shelf-stable, and easy to prepare and consume in NASA’s Orion spacecraft.”
A quintessential mission-day roster (barring launch and reentry) includes all three meals: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Two flavoured beverages are allotted to each astronaut in a day, which may include coffee.
The menu revealed that there were more than 10 types of beverages available to the astronauts, from caffeine options like coffee and green tea to lighter gut-friendly drinks such as the mango-peach smoothie to decadent vanilla and chocolate breakfast drinks. A hint of citrusy options on the beverage menu on the Artemis II mission includes lemonade, apple Cider, and pineapple drink, to name a few.
The list also mentioned the most common food items found on NASA’s Orion spacecraft. Among them were tortillas, wheat flat bread, vegetable quiche, breakfast sausage, couscous with nuts, mango salad, granola with blueberries, almonds, cashews, barbecued beef, brisket, broccoli au gratin, spicy green beans, Mac and cheese, tropical fruit salad, butternut squash and cauliflower. Phew! If that is not one big platter, we don’t know what is.
Brisket and cobbler and quiche, oh my!
Curious what astronauts eat on a 10-day trip around the Moon? Read about how we design and prepare meal plans for Artemis II: https://t.co/eVNGSQpM04 pic.twitter.com/SDRi5guFb3
— NASA (@NASA) March 31, 2026
Food and beverages are just one small fragment of the elaborate Artemis II mission menu. For oodles of flavoring, 5 different hot sauces are flying around the moon with the crew.
Gravity notwithstanding, astronauts on Artemis II will have no dearth of flavour-bombs. That’s what the menu has showcased so far. A fine amalgamation of condiments, like hot sauce, spicy mustard, cinnamon, and spreads like maple syrup, chocolate spread, peanut butter, strawberry jam, honey, almond butter, is also available to the astronauts.
To curb the sweet tooth, the astronauts have a lot of options from cookies, pudding, cobbler, chocolate, to good-old cake and candy-coated almonds.
On the launch day, President Donald Trump shared a post on X, in which he wrote, “Artemis II, among the most powerful rockets ever built, is launching our Brave Astronauts farther into Deep Space than any human has EVER gone. We are WINNING, in Space, on Earth, and everywhere in between — Economically, Militarily, and now, BEYOND THE STARS. Nobody comes close!”
Giving a shout-out to NASA in his Truth Social entry, Trump added, “America doesn’t just compete, we DOMINATE, and the whole World is watching. God bless our incredible Astronauts, God bless NASA, and God bless the Greatest Nation ever to exist, the United States of America!”
