A little wonder, every day

“Astronaut ice cream”

Photograph of Buzz Aldrin’s Apollo 11 spare meal package. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Buzz_Aldrin%27s_Spare_Apollo_Meal_(35214203144).jpg. CC BY 2.0. Resized from 4032×3647 to 1500×1356; aspect ratio preserved. Contextual documentary image only; caption explicitly says it is not proof the package contained ice cream or flew.

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Photograph of retail freeze-dried astronaut ice cream. Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Astronaut_ice_cream_(14084515599).jpg. Photographer Ruth Hartnup; CC BY 2.0. Resized from 6092×4352 to 1500×1071; aspect ratio preserved.

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The familiar crunchy freeze-dried “astronaut ice cream” is not ordinary crew food and is not the product that flew on Apollo 7. In 1973, NASA’s Ames Center asked American Outdoor Products to make this kind of ice cream for the visitor-center shop; it became a souvenir treat. NASA also reports that a different, pressed cube-shaped form of ice cream flew once during the Apollo era, and that ordinary ice cream has occasionally been eaten on missions with a freezer.