A History of Corned Beef in Space

Little known fact: The first deli sandwich eaten in space was corned beef.

Gus Grissom was hungry. Unfortunately, the commander of the Gemini 3 spacecraft was not scheduled to eat. In fact, there was little food aboard for this brief test flight. And none of the food was for Gus.

His crewmate, John Young, did have food. He was assigned that horrible early space food that you eat from a tube.

But, when Gus said he was hungry, John offered him a corned beef sandwich. Really! It must’ve looked real good…especially compared to that nearly inedible Gemini food.

Well, Gus ate the sandwich…and problems began. Crumbs were everywhere, getting into all kinds of sensitive equipment and posing potential problems. Nothing bad actually happened, but it could have.

NASA wasn’t happy. Nobody was actually punished. Wally Schirra—the astronaut who actually purchased the sandwich the day before at Wofie’s deli—went on to fly several more missions. John Young went on to command a lunar landing, and the first space shuttle flight. Gus Grissom was selected for the first Apollo mission. (But Gus and his crew died in the Apollo 1 fire on the launch pad.)

But NASA did tighten up rules on what astronauts could carry aboard on missions. And, as far as I know, another corned beef sandwich has yet to reach orbit.