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Congress' beef with NASA
Topic Started: Mar 25 2015, 09:24 AM (112 Views)
George K
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Finally
Corned beef, that is.

Here's a sammich.

Quote:
 
Just about two hours into the flight of Gemini 3, NASA's first two-man space mission 50 years ago Monday (March 23), pilot John Young reached into his spacesuit's pocket and pulled out a surprise.

"Where did that come from?" Gus Grissom, the mission's commander, asked his crewmate.

"I brought it with me," Young replied, somewhat matter of factly. "Let's see how it tastes. Smells, doesn't it?"

What Young revealed was the world's first — and possibly last — corned beef sandwich to fly in space.

...

Crumbs were the concern. In the weightless environment of space, they could find their way behind electrical panels or fly into a crewmember's eye. NASA's Gemini 3 press kit described how a gelatin layer was added to food items to avoid just such a problem.

"The [bite size items] are coated to prevent crumbing," the kit stated.

Of course, the contraband corned beef sandwich had no such outer layer, as Grissom was quick to discover.

"I took a bite, but crumbs of rye bread started floating all around the cabin," he explained in an interview with LIFE magazine soon after the mission.

...
"A couple of congressmen became upset, thinking that, by smuggling in the sandwich and eating part of it, Gus and I had ignored the actual space food that we were up there to evaluate, costing the country millions of dollars," Young wrote in his 2012 memoirs, "Forever Young."

The House of Representatives' appropriations committee convened a meeting to investigate the sandwich scandal.

"My thought is that ... to have one of the astronauts slip a sandwich aboard the vehicle, frankly, is just a little bit disgusting," Representative George Shipley of Illinois said to NASA administrator James Webb, associate administer for manned spaceflight George Mueller and Robert Gilruth, director of the Manned Spacecraft Center (now Johnson Space Center) in Houston.

"We have taken steps ... to prevent recurrence of corned beef sandwiches in future flights," Mueller replied.
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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Mikhailoh
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If you want trouble, find yourself a redhead
That is especially funny since I just this minute finished a nice corned beef and swiss on rye. :lol2:
Once in his life, every man is entitled to fall madly in love with a gorgeous redhead - Lucille Ball
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George K
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Finally
I loved reading "The Right Stuff." The movie didn't convey the joker prankster attitude that these guys had. They must've been a pile of fun to be with.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
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