Astronaut Smuggled Sandwich Into Space Aboard Gemini 3
News of a beef sandwich smuggled into space 50 years ago has now gone viral.
Astronaut John Young had smuggled a two-day old sandwich aboard the Gemini 3 probe on March 23, 1965, and surprised his commander pilot Gus Grissom when he pulled the snack out to eat.
"Where did that come from?" asked Grissom, to which Young had replied he got the snack along. Young even remarked that it smelt and later took a bite out of it. He could not finish the sandwich as crumbs began floating in zero gravity, making eating difficult. He snuck the sandwich back into his pocket!
While the astronauts had a laugh over the snack, NASA's political bosses in Congress were an unhappy lot. They accused the two astronauts of wasting millions of dollars spent on research and development of space-compatible food present on the spacecraft.
"After the flight, our superiors at NASA let us know in no uncertain terms that non-man-rated corned beef sandwiches were out for future space missions. But John's deadpan offer of this strictly non-regulation goody remains one of the highlights of our flight for me," Grissom said later.
The Gemini series of flights were instrumental in improving space-flight technology and are credited with many firsts, including the first spacewalk. Grissom would later perish in the Apollo 1 capsule that caught fire during testing, while Young would go on to retire as a career astronaut.
