Astronaut ice cream is a lie
February 19, 2016 2:50 PM   Subscribe

 
I will live the lie, rather than accept the truth.
posted by Atreides at 2:52 PM on February 19, 2016 [6 favorites]


I once said this to Buzz Aldrin and he punched me in the face.
posted by Atom Eyes at 3:01 PM on February 19, 2016 [58 favorites]


I actually quite enjoy it. I would take it into space with me.
posted by humanfont at 3:02 PM on February 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'll take the bacon over that ice cream any day.
posted by Greg_Ace at 3:03 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


I kind of like it, but then, I like Necco wafers.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 3:05 PM on February 19, 2016 [6 favorites]


I make a point of checking the gift shop at every science centre, aquarium, or museum I visit for astronaut ice cream. It seems to have fallen out of favour in recent years, but I'll never stop looking out for its weird, chalky self.
posted by majuju at 3:07 PM on February 19, 2016 [6 favorites]


First, the cake was a lie, and now this.
posted by Flipping_Hades_Terwilliger at 3:09 PM on February 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


Really, once you've pulled off the coup of naming your product "astronaut ice cream" you're already golden and there's no point in wasting effort on facts or making it actually enjoyable to eat.
posted by ckape at 3:10 PM on February 19, 2016 [7 favorites]


Next you'll be telling me that Dippin' Dots isn't the ice cream of the future.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 3:15 PM on February 19, 2016 [20 favorites]


I prefer liquid nitrogen-frozen ice cream to freeze-dried ice cream.
posted by me3dia at 3:15 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Another childhood memory revealed to be a lie. ;_;
posted by -t at 3:16 PM on February 19, 2016


This video made me irrationally mad. I love astronaut ice cream! Besides, I don't think it matters whether the stuff ever made it into orbit. It's a good way to illustrate the freeze drying process.
posted by Evstar at 3:24 PM on February 19, 2016


Flipping_Hades_Terwilliger: "First, the cake was a lie, and now this."

Actually, 'the cake is a lie', was a lie.
posted by Splunge at 3:24 PM on February 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


Next you'll be telling me that Dippin' Dots isn't the ice cream of the future.

In fact they dropped the "of the future" part a while back. Now it's just ice cream, which is a sure sign that we are now, in fact, living in the future.
posted by jedicus at 3:29 PM on February 19, 2016 [27 favorites]


J.K. Seazer, no, that part is all true.
posted by ckape at 3:29 PM on February 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


That bacon line was the best. That he was actually thinking ahead that he might be hungry if they ditched in the ocean shows how courageous astronauts are.
posted by Roger Dodger at 3:30 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


What about cosmonaut ice cream?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:39 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


They just chewed on a pencil.
posted by Freelance Demiurge at 3:50 PM on February 19, 2016 [40 favorites]


Cosmonaut ice cream is dehydrated beets, and you 'hydrate' them with vodka.
posted by sandettie light vessel automatic at 3:50 PM on February 19, 2016 [14 favorites]


Flagged as Other: The truth must stay buried.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 3:51 PM on February 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'm sorry what I meant to say is "Astronaut ice cream is real."
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 3:53 PM on February 19, 2016


Well, I came here to snark but clearly I'm not needed here.

Carry on.
posted by eriko at 4:08 PM on February 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


what is taikonaut ice cream then
posted by poffin boffin at 4:11 PM on February 19, 2016


As an adult, the most reliable source of astronaut ice cream is actually REI and other camping stores.

I like to buy it and sneak it into movie theaters.
posted by paulcole at 4:20 PM on February 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


what is taikonaut ice cream then
Deep fried, then freeze dried.
posted by zamboni at 4:21 PM on February 19, 2016


Just because they never flew in orbit doesn't mean that ice cream isn't made from real authentic astronauts. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to finish my bowl of Komarov Krunch.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 4:27 PM on February 19, 2016 [6 favorites]


In Soviet Russia they had cosmonaut potato. It also lie.
posted by humanfont at 4:37 PM on February 19, 2016 [7 favorites]


When I was a kid my teeth were very, very sensitive to cold, so I hated ice cream. I couldn't stand the shit. And it was supposed to be a reward, a treat! "Hey, let's all go out for ice cream!" Oh, yay, the treat that hurts.

What I'm trying to say is that when I discovered astronaut ice cream as a child, it was. the. fucking. BEST.

I can eat normal ice cream now, but I'll always have a soft spot for hard, crunchy ice cream. At room temperature.
posted by phooky at 4:51 PM on February 19, 2016 [5 favorites]


what is taikonaut ice cream then

It's ice cream that you're taikon' aut of the store after you've bought it.
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:51 PM on February 19, 2016


A few years ago I was craving something sweet and the only sugar we had in the house at the time was a pack of astronaut ice cream (from the Titan Missile Museum gift shop!)

Somehow when I was a kid, I got the idea astronaut ice cream was some super high tech food freezing/cold storage thing that enabled it to reconstitute and be cold when the package is opened and exposed to air. Kinda like how the heater things for MREs work, but in reverse. This is so obviously not the case and ridiculous I’m not sure how my 30 year old brain believed this.

The first bite was so disappointing and dry. So full of sadness.

Instead of giving up or just eating it, I had the brilliant idea to rehydrate and then freeze it.

That didn’t go so well.
posted by Lapin at 5:07 PM on February 19, 2016 [4 favorites]


Astronaut Ice Cream is fun to try now and then, even though it is pretty foul. But the worst is Moon Cheese.
posted by xedrik at 5:16 PM on February 19, 2016


The wikipedia cite is dead, but the pdf's on archive.org, and explains that the company that sells Astronaut Ice Cream "acquired the NASA technology from a now-defunct company that had been a subcontractor to Whirlpool Corporation, St. Joseph, Michigan, one of the original developers of the NASA freeze drying process."
posted by lucidium at 5:25 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


I will continue to enjoy it regardless of its sketchy origins.
posted by gloriouslyincandescent at 5:54 PM on February 19, 2016


I, for one, actually love astronaut ice cream. And I love the lie.

I briefly sold small-batch vegan ice cream through a friend's tearoom, and toyed with the idea of buying a freeze-dryer to make vegan astronaut ice cream sandwiches. I even had the perfect name: Star Stuff. But then I realized there are about 3 people in the known universe who would pay enough money for the product to make it viable.
posted by duffell at 6:19 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


Astronaut ice cream is great, though not as great as real ice cream and astronomically (har) more expensive. Dippin' Dots, however, are an affront to the very notion of dessert and its creator should be driven to the ends of the earth and then cast into purifying fire.
posted by dephlogisticated at 6:36 PM on February 19, 2016 [3 favorites]


what is taikonaut ice cream then


Flavored with either green tea or red bean. Otherwise, pretty much the same.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 6:43 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


I actually enjoyed Dippin' Dots, but they were (are?) more money than they were worth, plus you have to be at a mall or a fair to eat them, which cuts down on your enjoyment of your situation in general.

I love astronaut ice cream, and anything that produces that strange, malty, dissolving flavor.
posted by Countess Elena at 7:28 PM on February 19, 2016 [1 favorite]


If you consider that every kg you send to orbit costs more than the equivalent weight in gold, you might as well just send all bacon.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 7:47 PM on February 19, 2016


Isn't astronaut ice cream what those "strawberries" are made out of that you get in breakfast cereal nowadays?
posted by straight at 9:00 PM on February 19, 2016


But the worst is Moon Cheese.

Now you’ve exposed yourself as an alien, because humans love Moon Cheese.
posted by bongo_x at 11:54 PM on February 19, 2016 [2 favorites]


Oh man. Next someone will tell me that Pillsbury Space Food Sticks weren't actually taken into space.
posted by happyroach at 1:46 AM on February 20, 2016


But Tang was the real deal, right? Astronauts drank that stuff in zero gravity, right? Right?!
please
posted by Spatch at 2:19 AM on February 20, 2016 [1 favorite]


My wife and I gave out packets of astronaut ice cream as favors at our wedding reception. This was the reception that occurred just after we were married on the simulated surface of Mars at the local planetarium, beneath a chuppah I designed to roughly resemble a spacecraft. I like stories.
posted by Hot Pastrami! at 9:11 AM on February 20, 2016 [12 favorites]


But...
But...
But...
What about TANG, guys, that stuff's legit, RIGHT???
posted by Trinity-Gehenna at 4:15 PM on February 20, 2016


I will never not love astronaut ice cream.

The Neapolitan remains the best. The ice-cream sandwiches are okay, but the dry chocolate wafers just distract from the chalky glory of the ice cream.
posted by rachaelfaith at 1:16 PM on February 21, 2016 [3 favorites]


Oh Jesus I want some Tang now. I haven't drunk it in...it must be thirty years now. Next time I visit the U.S., it's going at the top of the To Do list.
posted by Bugbread at 6:45 AM on February 23, 2016


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