The reason it's vegetarian isn't political correctness, it's because there are
difficulties with taking livestock into space. This was designed to be grown
in space. So no doubt there will usually be frozen meat packaged for the
astronauts - this is something for future long-duration missions.

Maybe by then, they will be able at least to have a chicken farm on the
spaceship! Or, if not, at least an aquarium for cod and sole.

John Savard

On Fri, 5 Jan 2024 13:30:17 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
wrote:

>The reason it's vegetarian isn't political correctness, it's because there are
>difficulties with taking livestock into space. This was designed to be grown
>in space. So no doubt there will usually be frozen meat packaged for the
>astronauts - this is something for future long-duration missions.
>
>Maybe by then, they will be able at least to have a chicken farm on the
>spaceship! Or, if not, at least an aquarium for cod and sole.

The future of meat is cultured, not raised. This will be a requirement
on Earth for sustainability reasons, and will probably transfer nicely
to space (assuming there is any significant human presence in space,
which I think is unlikely).

On Friday, January 5, 2024 at 4:01:48 PM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:

> The future of meat is cultured, not raised.

Perhaps so, but I would think that is a rather distant future. Using
present technology, meat produced that way is vastly more expensive
than that produced by conventional methods.

Of course, for space missions, cost is not really a factor.

John Savard

On Sat, 6 Jan 2024 03:01:22 -0800 (PST), Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca>
wrote:

>On Friday, January 5, 2024 at 4:01:48?PM UTC-7, Chris L Peterson wrote:
>
>> The future of meat is cultured, not raised.
>
>Perhaps so, but I would think that is a rather distant future. Using
>present technology, meat produced that way is vastly more expensive
>than that produced by conventional methods.

Only because the technology is not quite here yet, and no economies of
scale can be realized. Plus, the cost of meat is much higher than the
price (the same market failure we see with fossil fuels). If we start
taxing carbon and other pollutants to correct that market failure, the
prices will be much higher and alternatives will be economically
attractive.

Insects are also a promising source of protein, and could be excellent
as a food source in space.