How Hot Dogs Became A Space Food

If you had to guess what astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins were eating during the Apollo 11 mission, when humankind first walked on the Moon, you might be picturing dehydrated, powdery astronaut food. You wouldn’t be wrong, because there was quite a bit of that, but there were a few more appetizing dishes, too. In fact, while the first meal eaten on the Moon was bacon, hot dogs also came along with the astronauts during the mission, giving them a small, tasty part in NASA’s history.

According to NASA’s Apollo 11 press kit from 1969, “wet-pack” frankfurters were indeed packed as a lunch for all three astronauts during their three-day rocket trip to the Moon. In this case, wet-pack means that unlike typical astronaut food, the sausages weren’t dehydrated for the journey. Instead, they were tightly sealed into small, aluminized packages. Hot dog buns weren’t really feasible for space travel at the time, so NASA instead describes the meal as a military-style hot dog that’s more of a sausage in a pouch (via USA Today). It came with a cheddar cheese spread, though, so it wasn’t overly plain, and the astronauts ate it with zero-gravity applesauce and chocolate pudding, then washed everything down with an orange-grapefruit drink.

The dehydrated “astronaut food” that NASA sends into space with its astronauts has a reputation for being unappetizing — and there’s a reason for that. Food packed up in rockets for space travel needs to be lightweight and nonperishable, and when possible, the food’s weight is reduced even more by dehydrating it. Since hot dogs can’t be dehydrated into a powdery cracker so easily, Apollo 11 packed them in thermostabilized wet-packs, alongside other meals like turkey with gravy and both beef and chicken potato stews. Nowadays, NASA also uses special zero-gravity drinking cups, which help astronauts safely drink their coffee.

As it turns out, Apollo 11 was far from the last time that astronauts would eat hot dogs in space. In fact, during the troubled Apollo 13 mission in 1970, a more light-hearted moment documented in NASA’s official mission flight journal saw crew member Jim Lovell calling his hot dog a sandwich; in fairness, it wouldn’t have come with the usual style of hot dog bun, so it might’ve been a rather flat frankfurter. Lovell also apologized for garnishing his hot dog with ketchup instead of NASA’s intended mustard (supposedly noted in the mission’s flight plan) — a hot dog condiment choice that Chicagoans would ordinarily find unforgivable.