The responsibility of concocting the US astronauts’ meals falls on the shoulders of NASA Space Food Systems Laboratory (SFSL). Their mission is to “…provide high-quality flight food systems that are convenient, compatible with each crew member’s physiological and psychological requirements, meet spacecraft stowage and galley interface requirements, and are easy to prepare and eat in the weightlessness of space.” Those necessities are strict confines in the composition of a spacefarer’s diet yet another factor comes into play–the degradation of the sense of taste in weightlessness.

Foods tastes bland and flavorless; even astronauts who admit to not enjoying spicy foods and finding themselves reaching for the bottle of hot sauce. A few days into a mission, Astronauts lose their sense of smell in space and food in general doesn’t taste quite on point. I can’t figure out why exactly astronauts lose their sense of smell, but I can only imagine fluids in your body get all messed up when you’re floating delicately in space. To compensate for this sensation, the Food Systems Lab has prepared a slue of spicy, flavor packed foods. They have even called in Wolfgang Puck, Emeril Lagasse, and Rachel Ray to created meals for lift off.

Generally, eating in space seems quite fun. It’s a lot easier to play with your food in the weightlessness. It does seem a little harder to start a food fight, though.

The history of the Space Race may be one of the most fascinating endeavors of our life times. Just the idea of travelling to space seems unfathomable, but we managed to do it. Designer Justin Van Genderen made a series of beautiful posters chronicling the journey from an American perspective, six in total, portraying the efforts of the Apollo, Mercury and Gemini missions. I’m not sure which ones I like better. There’s the highly stylized typography one, or the more information based posters which feel more scientific in nature. You can grab one for yourself by clicking here.

Price Peterson‘s Astronaut series is a clash between Stuart Little and King of the Hill that perfectly rolls into a charming portrait of an Americana astronaut. Peterson’s astronauts (#1-3) take flight and get a ‘buzz’ in a method that is more conventional to a gravity controlled figures such as ourselves.

Bill Finger’s Ground Control, a work-in-progress photograph series of miniature dioramas, explores the themes of braving the journey to the last frontier and humanizing the effort of placing boots on Martian soil. The series came out of Finger’s fascination of the idea that travelling to Mars would be a one-way trip. A sacrifice of earthly existence and all previous known ways of life. The next humans to venture outward will need to be someone bold and unlike any that have previously wandered outside of our stratosphere. The space colonizer cast in Finger’s constructed scenes have the desire to make the mystical trip but with no specific skills to allow him/her to do so. But someone has to do it.