11 Craziest Things About Living In Space
1. ...But You Can Order Pizza
What happens if you're in orbit and you're struck down by an unshakeable craving for junk food that rehydrated mashed potato just won't satisfy?
Well, if you're Yuri Usachov, you order pizza.
In 2001, Pizza Hut became the first fast food company to deliver off-world when they shipped a pizza up to the International Space Station. The stunt cost the pizza chain upwards of $1 million and took months to organise.
As well as the obvious hurdles of getting a pizza into orbit to overcome, there were also culinary considerations to take into account. As the taste buds are somewhat dulled in outer space, they had to add lots of extra salt and spices to make the pizza taste of anything. This is the same reason behind why aeroplane food is so salty (and inedible).
They also had to substitute their most popular topping, pepperoni, for salami, as it was less likely to go off in transit.
Seeing as most takeaway places struggle to keep your food warm from the other side of town, we suspect it wasn't piping hot when it arrived, but after living on a diet of powdered potato and glucose gel, it probably tasted like the ambrosia of the gods.