Fact Check: Why fruit isn't floating in International Space Station photo - Reuters

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The crew on the International Space Station (ISS) attach items to a tabletop to help them prepare food, according to NASA, contrary to claims shared online that space travel is fake based on a photograph of astronauts where food appears to be lying on a surface.

A Facebook post (archived) shared an image of nine astronauts posing for a photo while three pieces of fruit appear to be resting on a surface. Hashtags visible on the bottom of the image reads, “#FakeISS”, “#NASAlies” and “#ResearchFlatEarth.”

The photograph was posted on X, formerly Twitter, by astronaut Luca Parmitano in September 2019. It was also shared by NASA and the European Space Agency. Per NASA’s description, it shows nine astronauts including station cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin, cosmonauts Alexander Skvortsov and Oleg Skripochka, astronauts Luca Parmitano, Jessica Meir, Nick Hague, Christina Koch, Andrew Morgan, and visiting astronaut Hazzaa Ali Almansoori.

There is a reason the fruit visible in the lower left-hand corner of the image did not float in their zero-gravity environment, however.

“Crew aboard the International Space Station use a variety of fasteners, like tape or hook and loop, on the space station’s tabletop to help prepare food during meals,” Joshua Finch, a spokesperson for NASA said in an email to Reuters. “This allows the food, utensils, and other items to stay in place in the microgravity environment of the orbital complex.”

Videos of astronauts preparing food at the ISS show that they use a variety of ways to attach food and tools to a surface.

NASA astronaut Shane Kimbrough demonstrates how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich in a video posted on YouTube by NASA’s Johnson Space Center. He mentions throughout the video that items are secured down, in this case with tape and Velcro, to keep them from floating away. Kimbrough demonstrates that while it is possible for an item to float in front of him for a few seconds, it will eventually float out of reach.

“To prevent their food from floating away at meal time, packaging has Velcro patches so it can be attached to a tray or table,” the Kennedy Space Center said in an article published on Oct. 8, 2021, about eating in space, adding that some of the tools used to do this include tape, tethers, and magnets.

VERDICT

Missing context. This photo shows food attached to a surface in the International Space Station.

This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work.       

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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