It’s far from ready for mass production. However, Aleph’s Yoav Reisler told Space.com that the company planned to build on the experiment and make synthetic beef steaks available on terra firma using large-scale “bio-farms.”

This could be particularly helpful for astronauts. Spacecraft crews don’t have the luxury of raising farm animals — meat-eating astronauts could enjoy steaks on long journeys instead of making do with specially prepared space food. That, in turn, could give them the protein they need to sustain muscles on long voyages. In the nearer-term, though, Aleph hopes to reduce human-made climate change. Lab-grown meat needs far less power, water and farmland, potentially lowering emissions requirements even as it addresses food shortages.