Dessert In Space - “Houston We Have Chocolate Here.”
So if you haven’t heard, the Space Shuttle Atlantis is in space doing some work on the space station. I remember years ago sitting in my elementary class watching the Space Shuttle launch and being full of wonder on what it would be like to be in space and to see the Earth from such a view. Now it seems that we come and go to space on such a frequency that people don’t seem to pay attention anymore - unless there’s an accident.
In a recent article from USA Today, there was another “first” in space. The article reads, “A well-fed construction crew is a happy construction crew, so Atlantis brought not only the girder but also a rare treat: cups of chocolate and vanilla ice cream. Never before has the treat been served on the station, where most of the food is precooked and eaten from a pouch.”
Now if only the chocolate had a mentionable brand name… hmmm. What brand could it have been? (Can you say “product placement”?) The article does say the name brand of the ice cream - Blue Bell. Yum. Apparently, NASA officials allowed the ice cream “to help out (the crew’s) happiness quotient”. Way to go space station guys! Can we measure that happiness quotient… post in on a chart?… improve it for the next flight? We’ll have to wait and see.
I was surprised that Blue Bell, with a mention like this in USA today, didn’t issue a press release on the item. It would have made a really fun news bit. Blue Bell in space? They’ve come a long way from 1907 where they packed their ice cream in a large wooden tub with ice and salt and delivered it by horse and wagon around Brenham, Texas.