- This looks like dry dog food.
- I really thought it was Cap'n Crunch.
- Oh my god. These guys are living the life.
♪ (French accordion music) ♪
- (FBE) We're going to space today!
- We're going to space? - (FBE) And you're gonna eat
like an astronaut. - Whaat?!
That sounds so exciting!
- No way! Don't they eat powder?
- High key, I've always been excited.
That, I feel like, is something that everyone's talked about.
- I've always wanted to go to space, so I guess
this is a good taste of it. Ha.
- I hear it's dried out, 'cause in space--
I don't know. Something about space.
You have to have food like that.
My guess is it's not gonna be really good.
- This is exciting. There was one point when I was 10,
that I wanted to be an astronaut,
so I feel like since I never did that,
I get to live through it right now.
- (FBE) So here's a picture of how space food
is typically packaged. - It reminds me of MREs,
stuff like that, the military meals.
- (FBE) You'll notice that the one on the top is creamed spinach.
It has a tube at the top.
- Oh! I didn't even notice that.
- (FBE) So that is used for inserting oxygen
or water back into the packet for consuming.
- That must kind of suck, though,
'cause I feel like it affects the taste.
- (FBE) So now, obviously, we have an atmosphere and gravity,
so we can't provide the same experience
that astronauts have, but we are going to give you
something that's as close to that experience as possible.
- Why? We can totally get it hopping
to an anti-gravity chamber right now.
- You always get excited to try different foods
from different countries and stuff like that.
To be made especially for space, that's pretty cool.
- I already have so much respect for astronauts, but I'm gonna have
100% more respect if you have to eat really crappy food
for a long time.
- (FBE) Here is a freeze-dried version
and a hydrated version. - Is that cereal?
- I could see how the water helps it, obviously it just
makes the food expand and it makes it look
kind of normal. - This is like dry dog food.
This one looks like real human food.
- It looked like stuffing packaging on the left, but it looks like
eggs now, I think, on the right. It smells like a nasty omelet.
- Oh, that's sausage. This is a sad bowl of breakfast.
- Yeah, it tastes like very powdery eggs.
It doesn't taste too water. It's not too soft
to the point where it's like liquid. - It is just kind of weird
in your mouth, though, 'cause it's already mushy
and kind of the food that you've give to a baby bird,
like, already chewed up. (laughs)
- Personally, I think it tastes good.
It tastes a little spicy. The texture's nice.
It just tastes like something your grandma would cook.
- (FBE) This is a breakfast skillet with eggs and hash browns
and a couple of vegetables. - I mean it's kind of crazy
how you can add all these different ingredients
and still have it kind of taste the same relative
to what's down here.
- (FBE) Eating the food inside the packets
or tubes is really important. Not only do they do this
to help preserve the food until it's time to eat,
but also to help keep the food contained
so it doesn't float around and get into any equipment
around the space cabin. - Oh, that's smart.
- (FBE) It also helps prevent potential inhaling of random pieces
and choking. - Ohh, that's true!
Because if you try eating this dry one,
it's like eating a super dry piece of toast.
- Could I survive on this for a year?
I would say yes, 'cause I would be in outer space.
- (FBE) Here's the next one. - Ooh. Oh!
Is this like-- oh, okay! This totally looks like
some sort of lasagna-type thing. - This looks like a pack of ramen
before you put the water in it and boil it.
This actually looks pretty good, though, I'm not gonna lie.
- That's pasta. Ooh. That smells good!
- Ew, no. You can begin to taste the water right away.
Also, the pasta doesn't have any taste.
- The meat just gives the-- it has a really big pop to it.
- It just tastes like plain noodles that you boil, put no butter,
salt, anything on it, honestly.
- (FBE) So this is lasagna with meat sauce.
A lot of precaution is taken to avoid potentially dangerous objects
floating in space. For food that requires a utensil,
magnets are used to hold the metal down
whereas other items have velcro attached.
- Ohh! I didn't even think about that.
There's so much you have to think about when you're just
taking food in space.
- Cool, 'cause I know in kitchens and stuff,
you put the knives on the magnet on the wall or whatever.
I know a lot of people do that. - You're blowing my mind.
I had no idea that this was gonna be this good
or that it'd have this much flavor, you know?
I thought that it was gonna be a lot more bland and tasteless.
- (FBE) Here's your next one. - What is this?
Powder with some weird chunks in it versus this very creamy
and weird looking white rice pudding thing.
- It looks like it has some sugar crystals on top
or some kind of caramel flavoring. - It smells like protein powder.
- Kind of has a vanilla kind of sugary smell to it.
- Oh, it tastes more like a pudding. It doesn't have as much flavor
as I was expecting it to. It smells really good,
and then you eat it, and it's just consistency.
- Ah. That's bomb, bro. Yeah, dude, this tastes
like normal pudding. It's just creamy.
It flows well, and it tastes good.
- That tastes like dulce de leche pudding.
- (FBE) This is actually crème brûlée.
- Oh, really? - (FBE) Obviously not
the same presentation as a normal serving
in a restaurant, but still providing the same classic taste
from the French recipe. - Yeah, honestly I feel
like if you know what it is and you've tasted it before,
I feel like you begin to not care how it looks.
- On top of being able to see space,
you also get to enjoy space with this food.
Oh my god, these guys are living the life.
- (FBE) Here is your next one. - Is that cereal?
I really thought it was Cap'n Crunch.
- I think this one is beef stew.
- I don't know exactly what this is called,
but I see this all the time in canned versions
or homemade kind of styles of it.
- It's not bad, but this is definitely like baby food.
It's just a weird texture in the mouth,
where it's water and solid food.
- Oh, that's beef. I don't like this.
Rehydrated beef is just chewy. It's just really bouncy.
- For some reason, this one, you can really distinguish
what is what, and it goes well together.
- (FBE) So this one is beef stew. - Stew?!
Stew is supposed to be a soupy type thing.
This is just meat and vegetables.
- (FBE) So NASA has definitely improved its methods
since the 1960s. They used to only eat food straight out of tubes
to absorb protein and other nutrients,
but the taste wasn't always satisfying. - All of this stuff.
Yeah, that doesn't look like much is going on
with all that food, you know? Yeah, I can imagine
how tasteless that'd all be.
- Being able to adapt and make food better for them
is just gonna make them be able to do their jobs better.
- (FBE) All right, last one. - That ice cream!
- This is ice cream! I'm kind of worried
about how it's gonna taste, 'cause I feel like
it's gonna be super dry.
- As more saliva goes into it, it starts to just taste
more like melted ice cream.
- I gotta technically liquefy this in my mouth.
It didn't taste right for a second, and then as it completely dissolved,
I started to taste ice cream.
- Right before it all dissolves, all the powder is stuck together,
and just, ah, it feels so weird.
- You know how when you wait for your ice cream to melt
and you just drink it like that out of the cup, 'cause it tastes
like a milkshake almost? It's kind of like this.
- (FBE) So this is Neapolitan ice cream.
They feature this particular ice cream
at several space museums. The ice cream is freeze dried,
so you could carry it in your backpack,
take it on hikes, or even long travels,
and it doesn't need to be refrigerated.
- That is actually really cool and useful for earthly purposes.
- If you really think about it, it's such a cool concept.
You can just carry a block of ice cream theoretically
in your backpack all day long.
- I thought it was gonna be a lot worse
than I actually thought it was. you know?
For a lot of those dishes, I actually kind of enjoyed them.
- They have to do this every day for months or years
depending on where they're going. They can't pull up
to a drive-through at McDonald's in space and be like,
"Yo, get me a rehydrated Big Mac," you know?
- Thanks for watching us try space food here
on the React Channel. - Don't forget to subscribe.
We have new shows every week. - To infinity and beyond!
- What's up, guys? Alyssa here, a producer
from the React Channel. Thanks so much
for watching us try space food today.
This was actually a suggestion from one of our viewers.
So if you have an idea that you want us to try,
go ahead and hit us up in the comments,
and it might be the next episode. You never know.