Hi Samantha, I'm not an astronaut and I have never been into space. Unless one of the Solar Week scientists has a secret identity, I don't think any of us are astronauts and none of us has ever traveled in space. Most scientists do their work in offices, laboratories, or observatories right here on the Earth. Even though I have not personally flown in outer space, I helped test particle detectors for a sounding rocket that was launched into space to study the aurora earlier this week. You can read about what it was like to work on the rocket by clicking on the "Blogs" tab at the top of the message board web page. When I was in high school, I went to the Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama. I won my trip to space camp by answering trivia questions about space for a contest sponsored by a local dairy. At Space Camp, we did two simulated Space Shuttle missions. For one of our simulated missions, I got to be the Commander and sit in the cockpit of the simulator. For the second simulated mission, I was part of the ground control crew. At Space Camp, we ate normal food, although we did try some freeze dried ice cream and strawberries. I don't think the astronauts on the Space Shuttle eat "smashed" food, but I seem to recall they eat a lot of dehydrated food that is packaged like a TV dinner or instant soup. Of course, they add water and cook it before they eat it! Based on my experience at Space Camp, I think it might be fun to travel in space. However, being an astronaut is a very dangerous job and I think I have just as much fun working on rockets and data from unmanned spacecraft. We can send unmanned spacecraft to far away places like Saturn. No human astronauts will be able to go there for a very, very long time. An interesting fact - some sounding rockets can travel higher than the International Space Station. Kris