Expensive, tasty space food

Chinese science fiction critic Wu Yan writes on his blog about his impressions of China’s space food:

Space food has been packaged into a box for common people to enjoy.

I ate moon cakes, ice cream, soybeans in tomato sauce, banana chips, and pineapple chips. They were primarily dried. However, their flavor was very similar to that of “terrestrial versions.” The soybeans in tomato sauce were identical, both in flavor and appearance. Moon cakes were the same, though they were small, eaten in one bite. And there didn’t seem to be any filling. The ice cream wasn’t frozen, but it really had that feeling.

My cat was enthralled by the space food. She had a great interest in those space flavors. A pity that there was too little and I couldn’t give her any.

Lots of space technology could actually be enter society as memorabilia or special commodities, but there has evidently not been enough investment on this front; manpower is even scarcer. Reportedly, the number of people at the Space Center involved in promoting commercial development do not even make up one in one thousand. Although this is not the mission of the Space Center, in light of the attention of the entire country and even the entire world, the earlier this work is undertaken the better.

There truly doesn’t seem to be much going on in the way of promotion. A call to the information number reveals that a box of five or six sample flavors retails for 360 yuan, though volume discounts are available. But the Astronaut Center of China, which is responsible for developing food for China’s space program, has no deals in place with retail outlets for wider distribution. The box shown here is cobranded by the magazine Astronaut (航天员), possibly as a commemorative gift.

Three-sixty for a few bites of space food might seem expensive, but it’s certainly much cheaper than the US$159 that a commemorative Shenzhou-6 box was priced at on eBay earlier this year.

Check out Wu Yan’s blog post for photos of the space food – he says he’ll be posting more photos shortly.