A space giving Thanks

Family & feasting sums up to the holidays for a lot of America. But we can't all be in the kitchen with our families on Thanksgiving. Some of us will be with friends, and some of us will be...in space. When ever you're an astronaut, your options for decadent holiday meals are limited. Food made for space is simple, familiar, appetizing, and freeze-dried, made to be prepared quickly and easily.

Here, Cosmonaut Mikhail Tyurin (left), Expedition 3 flight engineer, and astronaut Frank L. Culbertson, mission commander, eat a Thanksgiving meal in the Zvezda Service Module on the International Space Station (ISS).

There's not a lot of kitchen prep involved in cooking in space: fre

eze dried, individually packaged, just add water. A full meal for a crew of four can be set up in about 5 minutes, and reconstituting and heating the food takes another 20 minutes or so.

The first astronauts to celebrate Thanksgiving in space were aboard the United States' first space base, Skylab, in 1973.

This will be the 13th year that astronauts and cosmonauts have been aboard the ISS during Thanksgiving. When in orbit, crew members typically celebrate each other's holidays.