Space Hotel and Space Food

In the past, most space food was like camping food: freeze-dried for being easy and safe to store, prepare and eat in space environment. It had specific requirements of providing balanced nutrition for astronauts working in space and very limited choices were available for them to choose. Note that space food actually plays a critical role in comforting astronauts (e.g., a reminder of home) and improving their mental wellbeing in space missions. Therefore, nowadays, astronauts have a wide menu of items to choose from, such as fruit salad, juices, pizza, cake etc. For example, the Shenzhou-14 taikonauts were provided mooncakes by the ground team to celebrate the Mid-Autumn Festival (mooncake festival) for the first time ever in space last year.  Because of the piece of mooncake in space, they felt full of love and were motivated to complete their missions.

What about space tourists? Space activities and food are essential in space travelling experience and can shape tourists’ journey and define their memories. Therefore, in the study titled An Exploratory Study on Consumer Preference for Space Travel, Space Hotel Services and Space Food, we also invited respondents to list out their top five most preferred space hotel services and the top five most preferred space food.

Among the top five most preferred space hotel services, both American and Chinese respondents mentioned “Food service,” “Swimming pool,” and “Spa/Massage.” Note that American respondents reported “Space tours” as one of their top five most preferred space hotel services, whereas Chinese respondents did not. Chinese respondents reported “Cinema” as one of their most preferred services.

Interestingly, results showed that the top one most preferred space food for American were “pizza,” whereas Chinese respondents reported “hot pot” but not “rice” or “noodle”. Among the top five, both American and Chinese respondents liked “steak” and “burgers”.

These findings provide insights for what services and foods should companies provide to Chinese and American tourists once reach orbit. For example, both American and Chinese respondents mentioned that they wanted to have zero-gravity indoor activities like swimming and spa/massage at space hotel. Therefore, artificial-gravity pools and spa/massage room would be basic facilities for a space hotel to build. Steak and burgers are also favourite food items for both cultures and should be “must menu items” for space hotel. Interestingly, hotpot is the most preferred menu item for Chinese tourists. It is a dish whereby a heat source placed on the dining table keeps a pot of soup stock simmering, and a variety of ingredients are served beside the pot for the diners to put into the hot stock. It would be great for a luxury space hotel to provide hotpot to shape Chinese tourists’ memories.