Several pieces of Old Amsterdam cheese are currently circling the earth, waiting for Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers to arrive at the ISS space station in around a month’s time, the Parool reports.



Kuipers apparently asked the Westland company to supply the cheese back in April. In addition to regulation food, astronauts are allowed to take limited supplies of their own choice.

Henriette Westland told the paper Kuipers had taken cheese into space before but because this is a longer trip – six months – he wanted to ensure a proper supply.

‘Space travel institutions ESA and Nasa have all sorts of regulations for the packaging,’ Westland said. ‘We did a lot of mailing back and forth about exactly how many inches long the pieces of cheese could be.’ The Parool says around 10 kilos of cheese are currently in space.

The cheese was sent from Huizen in the Netherlands to Westland’s American partner in Michigan and was then shipped on to Houston. From Houston the cheese was taken to Kazakstan where about half the supply was sent to the space station. The rest will be sent into space with another freight rocket in January.