Fifty years ago, on March 23, 1965, an astronaut onboard the Gemini 3 probe took with him something that nobody at NASA ever would have expected - a corned beef sandwich.
The first sandwich in space was smuggled onboard the Gemini 3 by NASA pilot John Young. The Gemini 3 mission was the first manned Gemini mission and just the second manned space mission ever by the United States. The Gemini 3 was also NASA's first 2 man mission with one of its objectives being the testing of the newly invented space food.
Of course, the smuggled corned beef sandwich had no such coating. The sandwich in question had been bought a couple days before by fellow astronaut Wally Schirra from Wolfie's Restaurant and Sandwich Shop and then passed off to Young before the mission. Of course, Young and fellow astronaut Gus Grissom had to give the sandwich a try, although they only had a bite as the crumbs began to fly all over the cabin.
It was a silly little stunt, but one that really ticked off Congress. On Earth, the House of Representatives Appropriation Committee heard about the sandwich and were none too pleased.
"A couple of congressmen became upset, thinking that, by smuggling in the sandwich and eating part of it, Gus and I had ignored the actual space food that we were up there to evaluate, costing the country millions of dollars," Young wrote in his memoir.
There were so upset by the stunt that NASA had to go before Congress and assure them that it would no longer allow any type of contraband corned beef to ever go back into space. Who wouldn't want to be a fly on the wall of those meetings.
Space food has come a long way since those early days of NASA. Today, astronauts can even enjoy an approximation of complex meals such as Thanksgiving dinner. If astronauts take the time and are creative, they can even make their own NASA approved sandwiches to take with them when they blast off.
As for John Young, he made it into space many more times albeit without the sandwich. That is until 1981 when he commanded the very first space shuttle mission. During that mission, Young took with him another corned beef sandwich, only this time it was NASA approved.
The sandwich that sparked the controversy is now preserved in acrylic and can be seen at the Grissom Memorial Museum in Mitchell, Indiana.
