#ICE CREAM SPACE FOOD HOW TO#

#ICE CREAM SPACE FOOD HOW TO#

In 1973, the visitor center at the Ames Research Center in California began researching how to allow visitors to taste astronaut food. Skylab had a freezer that was used for regular ice cream, and occasionally Space Shuttle and International Space Station astronauts have also taken regular ice cream into the space station. Traditional ice cream in space ĭuring the 1970s, astronauts ate regular ice cream on the Skylab space station and regular ice cream has also been eaten on the International Space Station. Īccording to one NASA food scientist, although freeze-dried ice cream was developed on request, 'it wasn't that popular.' Astronaut Mike Massimino expressed dislike of freeze-dried ice cream, calling it 'disgusting' and 'more closely related to a building material than a food'. However when the only surviving member of Apollo 7 was asked, he did not remember it being served on the flight. The only evidence for freeze-dried ice cream ever having flown in space is the menu for the Apollo 7 mission, on which is it listed for one of the meals. Despite use of images of space-walking astronauts in space suits on product packaging, freeze-dried ice cream was not included on any mission in which space suits were used. įreeze-dried ice cream is sold by mail order and is common in science museums and NASA visitor center gift shops, sometimes accompanied by other freeze-dried foods.įreeze-dried foods were initially developed for the Mercury missions. This process continues for hours, resulting in a freeze-dried ice cream slice.

The air pressure is then lowered below water's triple point, creating a partial vacuum, forcing air out of the chamber next heat is applied, sublimating the ice finally a freezing coil traps and turns the vaporized water into ice. The ice cream is first placed in a vacuum chamber and frozen until any remaining water crystallizes. įreeze drying (or lyophilization) removes water from the ice cream by lowering the air pressure to a point where ice sublimates directly from a solid to a gas. Freeze-dried foods were developed so that foods could be sent on long-duration spaceflights, as to the Moon, and to reduce the weight of the water and oxygen normally found in food as well as to not melting and spilling liquid in zero-gravity, which would be problematic. However, it was not used on any Apollo mission. It was developed by Whirlpool Corporation under contract to NASA for the Apollo missions. Compared to regular ice cream, it can be kept at room temperature without melting, is dry and more brittle and rigid, but still soft when bitten into. Freeze-dried Neapolitan ice cream, shown with air-tight foil partially unwrappedįreeze-dried ice cream, also called astronaut ice cream or space ice cream, is ice cream that has had most of the water removed from it by a freeze-drying process. Crew member Walter Cunningham told Vox in 2019 that 'we never had that stuff.' These days, thanks to private-sector innovations, International Space Station astronauts can enjoy regular ice cream delivered in Elon Musk's SpaceX Dragon, which has a freezer.A freeze-dried Ice cream sandwich in a bag. NASA did develop freeze-dried vanilla ice cream for the Apollo 7 mission in 1968, but it likely was never enjoyed in orbit. The type of freeze-dried ice cream sold in gift shops 'wouldn't be easy to eat in microgravity because it's very crumbly,' former NASA food scientist Vickie Kloeris told Serious Eats in 2020. It was created in the 1970s by American Outdoor Products, after a request from the National Air and Space Museum for a gift-shop treat.

Lest anyone worry about the inauthenticity of off-brand space treats, take heed: Astronaut ice cream is a Space Age myth, as the museum product we know was never actually eaten in space. Both have that same chalky crunch that quickly gives way to melting in your mouth. I tried the ice cream sandwich from Mountain House and the vanilla ice cream chunks from Super Garden. If the name-brand stuff is sold out (as it was when I last looked), a number of alternatives exist. Astronaut Ice Cream-which bills itself as 'the original space treat'-is sold via. Anyone who shares this nostalgia can nab the freeze-dried confection online. As a kid, I thought the best part of science museums was the astronaut ice cream in the gift shops.

Ice cream space food