Astronaut Ice Cream

Astronauts are brave adventurers. They journey out of their home planet to live in shuttles or space stations in the murky cold depths of outer space, pushing the boundaries of human exploration and constituting one of the few humans to view Earth from outside.

The Blue Marble - a famous picture of the Earth taken by the Apollo 17 astronauts on December 7, 1972. 

They also eat differently than us regular mortals. The intense environment of outer space, and the cramped quarters of a space station prevent astronauts from living the gourmand lifestyle. As an example, consider ice cream. Astronauts do have ice cream, albeit in a freeze-dried, processed form. It looks kind of like this:

Delicious.

That chunky cotton material in the picture is, in fact, ice cream - Neapolitan flavor. It's actually available commercially, as a novelty. I chanced upon this so-called Astronaut Ice Cream when I was visiting the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco earlier this summer, in their gift shop.

Pictured: Science!

Although I didn't buy any at the time, I happened to come across a package of Astronaut Ice Cream just last night. I was curious, so I ate a "slice" (the recommended serving size on the nutrition label). The experience was surreal. The texture of the slice was kind of like that of a cookie, and it left a powdery residue on my death. The flavor, however, was milky, definitely reminiscent of Neapolitan ice cream - only without the creamy cold goodness of the real stuff. After a few more bites, I couldn't take it anymore - the juxtaposition of cottony wafer and milky taste was unbearable. Overall, Astronaut Ice Cream is underwhelming. In other words, my respect for astronauts has increased twofold.

It could have been worse... (pictured: the earliest space food)