Space Foods: Remembering TANG, Space Food Sticks and Other Astronaut Meals

Fifty years after the Apollo moon landing, it’s hard to imagine the American culinary imagination getting fired up over powdered fake orange juice called Tang, or chocolate-flavored “space food sticks.”

But as a kid growing up in the 1960s, I recall thinking that EVERYTHING about the so-called “space age” was cool. When John Glenn was orbited the earth, we spent our lunch recess in the 6th grade classroom where we could watch from a black-and-white TV. And if Tang “breakfast drink” was good enough for am astronaut, it was jolly well good enough for the rest of us.

My son, Eric Phillips, is currently working on an Apple TV series about the American/Russian “race for space,” called “For All Mankind.” (It will be airing this fall.) While chatting with him, it brought back some of the culinary history that I learned on a visit the Johnson Space Center in Houston a few years ago.

The food on those early missions had to be lightweight, compact, and shelf-stable. Without gravity, food had to be kept from floating away and wreaking havoc on technical instruments. The early astronauts in the Mercury astronauts were fed bite-sized “food cubes,” freeze-dried powders, and pureed meat and veggies squeezed out of tubes.

“People always ask about Tang, and yes, we still use it. But it wasn’t developed for the space program,” said Michelle Perchonok, the project manager over advanced food technology for NASA.

General Foods had already developed the artifically flavored drink mix in 1957. When NASA began planning for space travel, “NASA took a look at it and said ‘Ooh,’ ” said Perchonok.

In 1962, when astronaut John Glenn performed eating experiments in orbit, Tang was selected for the menu. At the time, people were intrigued with everything about the space program. The fact that it was the drink on every Gemini and Apollo mission — plus a General Foods advertising blitz — put sales into orbit. Today, real freshly squeezed orange juice is the hallmark of “cool,” but back then, mixing a spoonful of orange sugary powder into a glass of water seemed modern and cool, at least until you tasted it.

The early space program was responsible for a number of food technologies, some still used in the food industry.

• Pillsbury scientists developed a food cube, the first solid food consumed in space by Scott Carpenter in 1962. The company launched a spin-off for consumers — the nutrient-dense, Tootsie-roll-like Space Food Sticks, wrapped in shiny foil for a “space age” look. You could call them the forerunner to today’s energy bars. As the initial buzz over the space program died down, their popularity waned, and the sticks were discontinued in the 1980s.

• The Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point System was developed to prevent food poisoning, and became a standard in canned foods, meat, poultry and seafood inspections operations. The idea is to identify all the points in food processing where food could become contaminated, and put a safety measure in place.

• A freeze-drying and packaging system is now used to make today’s shelf-stable foods for camping and emergency food rations.

• Meals were packaged in “retort” pouches, a flexible package that combines the advantages of a metal can and a boil-in bag.

• A metallic film, first used as a signal-bouncing reflective coating for the Echo 1 communications satellite, is used today in a wide variety of food packaging.

• A fast-cooking oven designed for the International Space Station is now used in the food-service industry.

• •Cook/chill hot plates for hospitals came out of a NASA contract with 3M to develop an electrically heated insulated dish that served as both plate and oven when slipped into a control module.

• An algae-based additive is now used in infant formula that contains fatty acids believed to aid in mental and visual development.

• A system was developed to use gases from decomposing trash to fuel the needs of a greenhouse.

• An ethylene “scrubber” was developed to remove most of the ethylene gas emitted by fresh fruits and vegetables while in storage facilities, to keep them from spoiling. (Ethylene gas accelerates ripening.)