NASA's new administrator Jared Isaacman speaks at a NASA town hall on Friday December 19 local time. Photo: Screenshot from NASA YouTube channel

NASA's newly confirmed administrator Jared Isaacman on December 19 held an agency-wide town hall to answer questions from the workforce. During the event, he responded to a question referencing China's installation of an air fryer on its Tiangong space station, describing it as an "upgrade" and pointing to the need for NASA to reassess practices that may have been "rigid in the past" during less mature times, according to the town hall transcript generated on NASA's official YouTube channel. 

According to the transcript, the town hall focused on the new administrator's vision for accelerating NASA's space agenda, including returning astronauts to the Moon, expanding cooperation with commercial partners, and pushing the agency to rethink long-standing practices amid growing global competition in space. 

The question, raised by a NASA employee, referenced China's latest use of an air fryer aboard the Tiangong space station and asked whether this should prompt a reassessment of some long-standing and "somewhat outdated" NASA requirements. Acknowledging the comparison, Isaacman remarked that he had eaten cold pizza in space, describing the air fryer as "an upgrade," and thought it is cool. He used the example to underscore the importance of continuously challenging practices that may have been rigid in the past as the agency moves toward a new phase of technological and commercial development.

Isaacman said the air fryer was merely an example, adding that there were many areas NASA had historically not prioritized or had considered higher risk that should now be re-evaluated, and that this approach should apply across the agency's entire portfolio of responsibilities.

China has previously demonstrated food preparation capabilities in space. Using a newly installed oven aboard the China Space Station, crew members of the Shenzhou-20 and Shenzhou-21 manned spaceflight missions prepared a space barbecue, with chicken wings grilled in 28 minutes, according to video footage released by the Astronaut Center of China. Taikonauts also cooked black-peppered steak during the mission, as the Global Times previously reported.

Global space enthusiasts also took to social media to react to what was described as the first-ever space barbecue, carried out aboard China's orbiting Tiangong space station using a newly introduced space oven, as the Global Times previously reported. Some users expressed surprise at the unexpected combination of barbecue and spaceflight, with X user @felix375 remarking that the scene felt incongruous and suggesting it showed Chinese astronauts were no longer limited to traditional space-paste meals.

Global Times