If there’s an upcoming food-related holiday (or any holiday that involves patrons preparing one of their favorite meals), ask participants to design a way that astronauts could celebrate. Or, ask participants to think about their own family’s food traditions and how to transport these to a space context. Have a wide variety of materials to encourage divergent thinking. Provide inspiring images of astronauts eating in space, and liquids on the loose.

We’ve provided some examples of projects that indicate different directions the project can be taken. The examples outlined connect to a few major themes you might choose to explore with your patrons that engage important questions about life in outerspace. Utensil design is a great way to get the creative juices flowing, since you can think about small adaptations that you can make to utensils we use every day (forks; spoons; chopsticks; spatulas; whisks). You can also explore tools to augment astronaut well-being, like the scent-creator we showed, which doesn't necessarily involve food, but rather the design of environments or atmospheres which remind astronauts of home.

If running an in-person workshop, bring along some snacks that might inspire ways that patrons are thinking about flavors, packaging, and food preparation. For example, in workshops we've run, we've brought along pop rocks, moon cheese, powdered drink mix, astronaut ice cream (which isn't actually eaten by astronauts!), hot sauce, etc. Freeze dried snacks work great, since they illustrate the types of foods that astronauts are already eating, but also bring some food items that don't translate so easily (something fermented, like miso or kombucha, or something that produces a lot of crumbs, like potato chips!).

The program could be divided into different meal courses, when check-ins and share-outs could happen. For example, a short warm-up as an appetizer, and then you as the maitre d’ of the space food restaurant can check in with each of the chefs / food scientists on what they've come up with so far. Some clarifying questions you could ask include: how would this be cooked, if at all? What is something that is causing you trouble? What would you like us to notice about your design / recipe?

Pair up your participants so they can share what they are working on. Alternatively, arrange the room as a Space Fare Fair where those who are tackling similar challenges can find one another, designating different tables / areas as “packaging innovation”, “taste lab”, “table-less tools”, etc.

NASA astronauts can tell you that zero gravity can take getting used to. Creative learning is a new way to facilitate, and it’ll take some time to get your space legs without the pull of a structured, step-by-step workshop to moor your feet.