What the First Astronauts Ate - Food in Space

CORRECTION! John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth, Alan Shepard was the first American to get to space. Thanks to Factor for sponsoring this video: Use code TASTINGHISTORY50 to get 50% OFF your first Factor box plus 20% off your next box at bit.ly/47TL1yd!

That reminds me of a sci fi convention where my sister was in charge of the hospitality (snacks and such). As we had no money for soda, we made a big industrial sized jug of Tang. Since it was the year Glenn went back to space, we covered our impoverished butts by calling it "The John Glenn Celebratory Tang Toast"

One dude invented Tang, Cool Whip, and Pop Rocks. William A. Mitchell you legend.

My 3 favourite things in these videos: a) somehow fitting the hardtack *clack clack* into any video b) Max's face when he doesn't like the food during tasting c) the food history / anecdotes :3

Hello, Max. I can add a little to your story. I studied food, nutrition and dietetics at UC Berkeley from 1970-1975, and this subject came up. Our professors helped determine what astronauts (and soldiers) needed and the specifications were turned over to the food scientists. Berkeley's recommendation was to send orange juice which was served at most American breakfast tables. However, it did not reconstitute in zero gravity. Tang was chosen because it was similar to orange juice and mixed easily in space. For years after, nutritionists had to counter the idea that Tang and orange juice were equally nutritious. Tang was astronaut food, for technical reasons, but, it does not have the same nutritional benefits of real juice.

I absolutely love the hoops that Max goes through to include the Hardtack joke in as many episodes as possible. Please never stop this.

13:03 like carcinization (all animals eventually evolve into crabs), all travel food evolves into hardtack

Side note on Cool Whip. I learned about this while working as a contractor for NY factory. There are different kinds of Cool Whip. A sweeter version goes to Canada and a version with less air whipped in was made for transportation to the west coast- less air to prevent containers popping when they go over the Rockies

Speaking of the flavor of Tang: when my brother served in Vietnam, he asked our mother to send Tang because the water didn't taste good and he needed something to mask it.

When I was in high school, we had an astronaut come to the school and give a talk about the space program. After the address, he took questions, and someone asked if they really used Tang. I will never forget his reply. "Unfortunately." 🤣

There are only two options of Tang dilution in any given glass of water: 1. the shadow of an orange passed over this glass an hour ago, 2. holy ascorbic acid frag grenade!!

Freeze drying is a fairly complete form of dehydration, the actual reason the texture is preserved is that the product is first frozen and then vacuumed dry, in the process the ice sublimates directly into vapor and doesn't boil, combined with the fact the cells are frozen stiff, it all results in no tears and ruptures of the cell structure within foods.

I'm actually a russian speaker and the bits about cosmonauts are great! Minor correction about the dried fish: it's vobla, not volba. Also, my granddad used to bite into raw onions, he was military guy from a small Siberian village and saw this as normal, very manly :)

Holy crap. This could lead to the weirdest collaboration video ever: Tasting History + the Hydraulic Press channel = potential banana Space-Cereal.

I never had Tang pie, but my aunt used to make what she called "Chemical Pie" using bottled lime and lemon juice and sweetened condensed milk in a graham cracker crust. The acid in the citrus juice polymerized the milk proteins, and that's all there was to it.

Love the continuation of Pokémon plushies matching the theme in the background. This time Palkia, the Pokémon that can distort space

When I was a kid, my grandmother would make us “Russian tea.” It was a mix of Tang, lemonade powder, ice tea powder, sugar, cinnamon, and whole cloves you would add hot water to. I believe it is a twisted take on the Russian custom to serve tea with lemon. It is something I enjoy even now when I want something hot but fruity in the winter!

8:55, back in like 2007 I got to go to a “Lunch with an astronaut” at Kennedy Space Center, and the two astronauts there were John Young and Charlie Duke. They get to the Q&A portion and this old guy gets the microphone and asks “How did you get that corned beef sandwich past me?” The gentleman was none other than Gunter Wendt, an engineer that would strap the astronauts into their seats. It was probably the most interesting interaction I’ve ever seen. Edit: Ok here’s how he did it, there was an accomplice, Wally Schirra, had picked up the sandwich and slipped it to Young after he had been suited up, it was tucked in a pocket in his pressure suit and since he had already been approved by the other technicians suiting him up Wendt was none the wiser.

Tang may be the astronaut's drink but we all know that prune juice is a warrior's drink

The “Tang” face needs to be a stock clip going forward when Max encounters anything particularly sour/tangy 😂