Setting foot on the moon for the first time was perhaps one of the biggest technological, scientific and political achievements of our age. So what better way to celebrate, after exploring that new lunar landscape, than with bacon?


After leaping around in low gravity, taking photographs, and mumbling about small steps and giant leaps, Neil Armstrong and "Buzz" Aldrin sat down to a meal of bacon cubes, according to Amy Shira Teitel on her Vintage Space blog. She explains:

[B]acon cubes were among the meals stored in the lunar module. And it worked out that meal A, the first scheduled meal to be eaten on the Moon, consisted of bacon squares, peaches, sugar cookie cubes, pineapple grapefruit drink and coffee. They ate history's first meal on Moon slightly ahead of schedule after landing at the Sea of Tranquility.


It wasn't, however, a particularly rare treat for the pair. It turns out that, like any good U.S. organization, NASA has somewhat of a love affair with bacon. Breakfast often features bacon squares in space, and apparently Canadian Bacon and applesauce is a particular astronaut favorite.

Indeed, during the Apollo 7 mission, astronaut Walt Cunningham once commented to Bill Pogue during breakfast that "Happiness is a package of bacon squares on day 10." Amen. [PopSci via Smithsonian]

Image by Orin under Creative Commons license