Adding another chapter to the decades-old "space race" chronicles, Pizza Hut has become the first company to deliver pizza straight to the pioneers living in outer space on the International Space Station (ISS). The creation and delivery of the world's first space-consumable pizza was the culmination of nearly a year of collaboration between Pizza Hut and Russian food scientists. After months of rigorous testing, the Pizza Hut pizza made the landmark, trans-atmospheric journey to become the only pizza ever delivered to and eaten by people living in space.

The "space" Pizza Hut pizza delivered to the ISS featured traditional ingredients including a crispy crust, pizza sauce and cheese, but was topped with salami to enhance the pizza's flavor because researchers found that pepperoni did not withstand the 60-day testing process. In addition, the Pizza Hut space pizza was made six inches in diameter—the size of the Pizza Hut Personal Pan Pizza®—in order to fit into the smaller-sized oven aboard the ISS. Before final certification for consumption was given, the vacuum-sealed Pizza Hut pizza had to undergo rigorous stabilized thermal conditions to determine freshness-stay and life span.

Consumers can log onto www.pizzahut.com to view photographs of the cosmonauts eating Pizza Hut pizza inside the ISS and photographs of the pizza being developed in the kitchens of the Russian space program's headquarters in Kazakhstan.

In July 2000, the race for space commercialization began as Pizza Hut became the first company in history to place its logo on the world's largest proton rocket. The innovative space sponsorship campaign was part of the company's dramatic turnaround and re-imaging campaign, which includes a more than $500 million investment over five years to make contemporary and upgrade Pizza Hut units around the globe.