For longer missions though, such as a Moon base or trips to planets, astronauts will spend part of their time farming, milling and cooking what they grow.
The food working group at the Advanced Life Support Program works on current issues such as what crews aboard the International Space Station will eat and what to feed the long-term space traveler.
Charles Bourland, Ph.D oversees the group and spends a lot of his time preparing for the International Space Station crews scheduled to begin occupying the station next year.
"It's a lot of negotiations," he said. "There's problems with the cultural differences about the food we're going to send up."
The United States and the Russians split responsibility for feeding the station crews, he said.
A lot of what the ISS astronauts will eat is currently used in the shuttle program - pre-packaged meals that slightly resemble the military's MREs (Meals, Ready-to-Eat) but without the heavy calories and sodium, Bourland said.
The group also works toward the future where astronauts won't be able to carry enough food or be resupplied externally.
"On an extended mission, you'd want to reduce the number of consumables because it'll be expensive money and cargo wise," said Yael Vodovotz, Ph.D, a post-doctoral aerospace fellow at Johnson Space Center developing systems for long-term missions.
Astronauts on long missions might wind up being farmers and growing foodstuffs such as wheat, corn and lettuce.
"With a crop-based system, it not only provides food, but provides the crew with oxygen and water," she said.
Unique challenges confront the space farmer though. In a closed environment, fumes from nutrient solutions and even the pleasant aroma of baking bread could prove hazardous.
Additional challenges exist in recycling water, the time spent growing and processing food and not disturbing the spacecraft's navigation, power and stability.
"We have to deal with engineering, life sciences, psychology and medical areas, so we're stuck in the middle," she said.
The future astronaut's diet will probably be plant-based, but not exclusively, Vodovotz said.
Don't expect to see cows, pigs or goats venturing to the stars though.
"Taking an animal would be like taking another crew member," she said. "It would be an inefficient source of protein in addition using up the atmosphere and not giving back."
Instead, astronauts craving meat will consume pre-packaged items.
The food group worked on a 15-day experiment in 1995 to demonstrate how wheat could be grown in a closed system to provide food and air in a closed chamber.
In 2004, long-term experiments in the BIO-Plex complex at Johnson Space Center are planned
The complex is a long duration test facility that will house four personnel in experiments lasting up to 240 days
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