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Space is the final frontier, but if we are ever to move off this dust bowl we call planet Earth, then we’ll need to take as many home comforts with us as we are able.

Luckily startup BeeHex has designed a Chef 3D printer that is capable of making pizza and doughnuts.

No freeze dried astronaut food for us!

Currently, the freeze dried food eaten by astronauts whilst in space doesn’t meet the nutritional needs if they undertake a long mission, to Mars for instance.

Onboard refrigeration and frozen storage requires additional spacecraft resources, resources that could be better utilised for other mission-specific equipment and systems.

NASA are keen to push the technology forward, having investing $125,000 in 2013 into a research study on how 3D printing can be used to make food for space travel.

Of course, space vessels aren’t capable of storing fresh tomatoes and dough for extended periods of time, instead, this new wave of machines can store powdered forms of pizza mixtures. These are then mixed and used by the 3D printer to create edible prints.

The resulting pizza actually looks very good!

The technology is still in its infancy, so whilst we could be eating pizza whilst passing our very own Moon in the next few decades, maybe eventually we’ll see even more innovation and experimentation and end up with a Full English or steak and chips being printed straight to our plates?

In the meantime, the company are hoping to get the 3D Chef Printer to market here on planet Earth, showcasing the current iteration at conventions all over the world.

Check the Chef 3D printer in action below:

https://www.inverse.com/article/28758-pizza-3d-printer-space-travel-beehex-nasa