Your random space fact for today is that John Young smuggled a corned beef sandwich in his spacesuit on the Gemini 3 mission, 56 years ago this week. Gemini 3 was the first crewed mission of the Gemini program, NASA’s rapid development of rendezvous and docking capability. During the flight, astronaut Young took the sandwich out of his pocket and took a bite. “Crumbs of rye bread started floating around the cabin,” he said. Small particles could cause a hazard to the spacecraft’s components, so he put the sandwich away. A few years later John Young brought some corned beef onto a shuttle flight he commanded, with permission. Nowadays, they have officially sanctioned sandwiches on the ISS, but they mostly use tortillas because those have a lower risk of crumbs.
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How an Astronaut Smuggled a Sandwich Into Space (Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum)
