Before going on his date with the stars, cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka received a series of vials from Israeli food tech company Aleph Farms. As detailed byHow Stuff Works, those vials contained animal cells from a rabbit, fish, and cow respectively. On their own, they sound like the ingredients of an incomplete lab experiment. But with the aid of a modified 3D printer and some bio-ink, they became the stuff of sci-fi fantasies. Each sample yielded a sample of 3D-printed meat, including what Space.com calls “space beef.”

3D-printed meat isn’t a new breakthrough on its own. The first burger ever printed artificially mooed into existence in 2013. But in space, no one can hear beef scream, and gravity can’t hold it down. So instead of printing tissue downward in layers, the meat is pieced together “from all sides simultaneously, like making a snowball.” The process occurs much faster than on Earth. And since it doesn’t require killing an animal or thousands of gallons of water, it doesn’t involve the same waste or pollution. In other words, you don’t have to have a cow over space-grown beef.