Saturday, 22 March 2025

NASA Reveals Semifinalists of Power to Explore Challenge

4 min read

NASA Reveals Semifinalists of Power to Explore Challenge

A collage of words that show the “superpowers” of the 45 semifinalists, including words like resilience, persistence, communication, determination, and curiosity, to name a few.

A word cloud showing “superpowers” of the 45 semifinalists.

NASA/David Lam

NASA selected 45 student essays as semifinalists of its 2024-2025 Power to Explore Challenge, a national competition for K-12 students featuring the enabling power of radioisotopes. Contestants were challenged to explore how NASA has powered some of its most famous science missions and to dream up how their personal “superpower” would energize their success on their own radioisotope-powered science mission to explore one of the nearly 300 moons of our solar system.

The competition asked students to learn about radioisotope power systems (RPS), a type of “nuclear battery” that NASA uses to explore the harshest, darkest, and dustiest parts of our solar system. RPS have enabled many spacecraft to explore a variety of these moons, some with active volcanoes, methane lakes, and intricate weather patterns similar to Earth. Many of these moons remain a mystery to us.

This year’s submissions to NASA’s Power to Explore Challenge were immensely enthralling, and we’re thrilled that the number of entries reached a record high.

Carl Sandifer II

Program Manager, NASA Radioisotope Power Systems Program

In 275 words or less, students wrote about a mission of their own that would use these space power systems to explore any moon in our solar system and described their own power to achieve their mission goals.

The Power to Explore Challenge offered students the opportunity to learn more about these reliable power systems, celebrate their own strengths, and interact with NASA’s diverse workforce. This year’s contest set a record, receiving 2,051 submitted entries from all 50 states, Guam, U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) Overseas.

“This year’s submissions to NASA’s Power to Explore Challenge were immensely enthralling, and we’re thrilled that the number of entries reached a record high,” said Carl Sandifer II, program manager of the Radioisotope Power Systems Program at NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland. “It was particularly interesting to see which moons the students selected for their individual essays, and the mysteries they hope to unravel. Their RPS-powered mission concepts always prove to be innovative, and it’s a joy to learn about their ‘superpowers’ that exemplify their path forward as the next generation of explorers.”

Entries were split into three categories: grades K-4, 5-8, and 9-12. Every student who submitted an entry received a digital certificate, and over 4,859 participants who signed up received an invitation to the Power Up with NASA virtual event. Students learned about what powers the NASA workforce utilizes to dream big and work together to explore. Speakers included Carl Sandifer II, Dr. Wanda Peters, NASA’s deputy associate administrator for programs in the Science Mission Directorate and Dr. Zibi Turtle, principal investigator for NASA’s Dragonfly mission from the John Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

Fifteen national semifinalists in each grade category (45 semifinalists total) have been selected. These participants also will receive a NASA RPS prize pack. Finalists for this challenge will be announced on April 23.

Grades K-4

Vihaan Akhoury, Roseland, NJ
Ada Brolan, Somerville, MA
Ashwin Cohen, Washington D.C
Unnathi Chandra Devavarapu, San Marcos, CA
Levi Fisher, Portland, OR
Tamanna Ghosh, Orlando, FL
Ava Goodison, Arnold, MD
Anika Lal, Pflugerville, TX
Diya Loganathan, Secaucus, NJ
Mini M, Ann Arbor, MI
Mark Porter, Temple Hills, MD
Rohith Thiruppathy, Canton, MI
Zachary Tolchin, Guilford CT
Kavin Vairavan, West Windsor Township, NJ
Terry Xu, Arcadia, CA

Grades 5-8

Chowdhury Wareesha Ali, Solon OH
Caydin Brandes, Los Angeles, CA
Caleb Braswell, Crestview, FL
Lilah Coyan, Spokane, WA
Ashwin Dhondi Kubeer, Phoenix, AZ
Jonathan Gigi, Cypress, TX
Gagan Girish, Portland, OR
Maggie Hou, Snohomish, WA
Sanjay Koripelli, Louisville, KY
Isaiah Muniz, South Orange, NJ
Sarabhesh Saravanakumar, Bothell, WA
Eliya Schubert, Katonah, NY
Gabriel Traska, Fort Woth, TX
Jaxon Verbeck, Riggins, ID
Krish Vinodhkumar, Monrovia, MD

Grades 9-12

Samaria Berry, Kinder, LA
David Cai, Saipan, MP
Reggie Castro, Saipan, MP
Ryan Danyow, Rutland City, VT
Faiz Karim, Jericho, NY
Sakethram Kuncha, Chantilly, VA
Katerina Morin, Miami, FL
Emilio Olivares, Edmond, OK
Kairat Otorov, Trumbull, CT
Dev Rai, Herndon, VA
Shaurya Saxena, Irving, TX
Saanvi Shah, Bothell, WA
Niyant Sithamraju, San Ramon, CA
Anna Swenson, Henderson, NV
Alejandro Valdez, Orlando, FL

About the Challenge

The Power to Explore Student Challenge is funded by the NASA Science Mission Directorate’s Radioisotope Power Systems Program Office and managed and administered by Future Engineers under the direction of the NASA Tournament Lab, a part of the Prizes, Challenges, and Crowdsourcing Program in NASA’s Space Technology Mission Directorate.

Kristin Jansen
NASA’s Glenn Research Center

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Friday, 21 March 2025

Hubble Captures a Neighbor’s Colorful Clouds

2 min read

Hubble Captures a Neighbor’s Colorful Clouds

An area of space filled with stars. Most of the stars are small, distant dots in a range of orange colors; closer stars shine with a bright glow and hold four thin diffraction spikes around them. These closer stars appear both bluish and reddish. Clouds from a nebula cover the left half of the scene, giving it a blue-greenish cast. More pieces of cloud also drift over the black background of space on the right side of the image.

This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features part of the Small Magellanic Cloud.

ESA/Hubble & NASA, C. Murray

Say hello to one of the Milky Way’s neighbors! This NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope image features a scene from one of the closest galaxies to the Milky Way, the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC). The SMC is a dwarf galaxy located about 200,000 light-years away. Most of the galaxy resides in the constellation Tucana, but a small section crosses over into the neighboring constellation Hydrus.

Thanks to its proximity, the SMC is one of only a few galaxies that are visible from Earth without the help of a telescope or binoculars. For viewers in the southern hemisphere and some latitudes in the northern hemisphere, the SMC resembles a piece of the Milky Way that has broken off, though in reality it’s much farther away than any part of our own galaxy.

With its 2.4-meter mirror and sensitive instruments, Hubble’s view of the SMC is far more detailed and vivid than what humans can see. Researchers used Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 to observe this scene through four different filters. Each filter permits different wavelengths of light, creating a multicolored view of dust clouds drifting across a field of stars. Hubble’s view, however, is much more zoomed-in than our eyes, allowing it to observe very distant objects. This image captures a small region of the SMC near the center of NGC 346, a star cluster that is home to dozens of massive young stars.

Media Contact:

Claire Andreoli (claire.andreoli@nasa.gov)
NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD

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Mar 21, 2025

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Andrea Gianopoulos

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Sols 4484-4485: Remote Sensing on a Monday

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Sols 4484-4485: Remote Sensing on a Monday

A grayscale photograph of the Martian surface by the Curiosity rover captures medium gray soil next to the rover with exposed medium-sized, lighter-colored rocks scattered around. Most of the rocks appear layered, with dividing lines making them look like features drawn on a topographic map. The bottom of the frame shows parts of the rover, running from the middle left edge to the lower right corner of the image, including part of its robotic arm which carries a nameplate imprinted with “Curiosity” outlined in white, all-capital letters, and to the right of that a line drawing of the rover.

NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity acquired this image using its Left Navigation Camera on March 17, 2025 — sol 4483, or Martian day 4,483 of the Mars Science Laboratory mission — at 09:38:17 UTC.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Written by Conor Hayes, Graduate Student at York University

Earth planning date: Monday, March 17, 2025

Last week I was in Houston, Texas, at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. The mid-March weather in Houston is often more like mid-summer weather here in Toronto, so it has been a bit of a shock coming home to temperatures that are hovering around freezing rather than being in the upper 20s (degrees Celsius, or the low to mid 80s for those of you still using Fahrenheit). Still, Toronto is positively balmy compared to Gale Crater, where temperatures usually range between minus 80°C and minus 20°C (or minus 110°F to minus 5°F) during this part of the year. These cold temperatures and their associated higher demands on the rover’s available power for heating are continuing to motivate many of the decisions that we make during planning.

We received the double good news this morning that the weekend’s drive completed successfully, including the mid-drive imaging of the other side of “Humber Park” that Michelle mentioned in Friday’s blog, and that our estimates of the weekend plan’s power consumption ended up being a little conservative. So we started planning exactly where we wanted to be, and with more power to play around with than we had expected. Yay!

The weekend’s drive left us parked in front of some rocks with excellent layering and interesting ripples that we really wanted to get a closer look at with MAHLI. (See the cover image for a look at these rocks as seen by Navcam.) Sadly, we also ended up parked in such a way that presented a slip hazard if the arm was unstowed. As much as we would have loved to get close-up images of these rocks, we love keeping Curiosity’s arm safe even more, so we had to settle for a remote sensing-only plan instead.

Both the geology and mineralogy (GEO) and the environmental science (ENV) teams took full advantage of the extra power gifted to us today to create a plan packed full of remote sensing observations. Because we’re driving on the first sol of this two-sol plan, any “targeted” observations, i.e. those where we know exactly where we want to point the rover’s cameras, must take place before the drive. The first sol is thus packed full of Mastcam and ChemCam observations, starting with a 14×3 Mastcam mosaic of the area in front of us that’s outside of today’s workspace. Individual targets then get some Mastcam love with mosaics of various ripple and layering features at “Verdugo Peak,” “Silver Moccasin Trail,” and “Jones Peak.” Mastcam and ChemCam also team up on a LIBS target, “Trancas Canyon,” and some more long-distance mosaics of Gould Mesa, a feature about 100 meters away from us (about 328 feet) that we’ll be driving to the south of as we continue to head toward the “boxwork” structures.

After a drive, there often aren’t many activities scheduled other than the imaging of our new location that we’ll need for the next planning day. However, in this plan ENV decided to take advantage of the fact that Navcam observations can take place at the same time that the rover is talking to one of the spacecraft that orbit Mars. This is a useful trick when power is tight as it allows us to do more science without adding additional awake time (since the rover needs to be awake anyway to communicate with the orbiters). Today, it’s being used to get some extra cloud observations right before sunset, a time that we don’t often get to observe. These observations include a zenith movie that looks straight up over the rover and a “phase function sky survey,” which takes a series of nine movies that form a dome around the rover to examine the properties of the clouds’ ice crystals.

The second sol of this plan is much more relaxed, as post-drive sols often are because we don’t know exactly where we’ll be after a drive. Today, we’ve just got our usual ChemCam AEGIS activity, followed by a pair of Navcam cloud and cloud shadow movies to measure the altitude of clouds over Gale. As always, we’ve also got our usual set of REMS, RAD, and DAN activities throughout this plan.

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NASA Selects 14 Finalist Teams for the 2025 RASC-AL Competition

RASC-AL banner image featuring astronauts working on the Moon

This year’s RASC-AL competition invited undergraduate and graduate students from across the nation to develop new, innovative concepts to improve our ability to operate on the Moon, Mars, and beyond.ASA

NASA

Fourteen university teams have been selected as finalists for NASA’s 2025 Revolutionary Aerospace Systems – Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) Competition. This year’s competition invited undergraduate and graduate students from across the nation to develop new, innovative concepts to improve our ability to operate on the Moon, Mars, and beyond. Finalists will present their proposed concepts to a panel of NASA and aerospace industry leaders.

The 2025 Finalists are:

Sustained Lunar Evolution – An Inspirational Moment:

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, “M.I.S.T.R.E.S.S. – Moon Infrastructure for Sustainable Technologies, Resource Extraction, and Self-Sufficiency”

Tulane University, “Scalable Constructs for Advanced Lunar Activities and Research (SCALAR)”

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, “Project Aeneas”

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, “Project Khonsu”

Advanced Science Missions and Technology Demonstrators for Human-Mars Precursor Campaign:

Auburn University, “Dynamic Ecosystems for Mars ECLSS Testing, Evaluation, and Reliability (DEMETER)”

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, “MATER: Mars Architecture for Technology Evaluation and Research”

Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, “Project Vehicles for Engineering Surface Terrain Architectures (VESTA)”

Small Lunar Servicing and Maintenance Robot:

Arizona State University, “DIANA – Diagnostic and Intelligent Autonomously Navigated Assistant”

South Dakota State University, “Next-gen Operations and Versatile Assistant (NOVA)”

South Dakota State University, “MANTIS: Maintenance and Navigation for Technical Infrastructure Support”

Texas A&M University, “R.A.M.S.E.E.: Robotic Autonomous Maintenance System for Extraterrestrial Environments”

University of Maryland, “Servicing Crane Outfitted Rover for Payloads, Inspection, Operations, N’stuff (SCORPION)”

University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez, “Multi-functional Operational Rover for Payload Handling and Navigation (MORPHN)”

Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, “Adaptive Device for Assistance and Maintenance (ADAM)”

The RASC-AL Competition is designed to engage university students and academic institutions in innovation within the field of aerospace engineering. By providing a platform for students to develop and present their ideas, NASA aims to cultivate foundational research for new concepts and technologies for the future of space exploration. This year’s RASC-AL projects include scalable lunar infrastructure and services, a lunar robot that can work autonomously or be controlled remotely, and a concept for a science or technology demonstration mission using human-scale launch, transportation, entry, and landing capabilities at Mars. All of these functions are critical to future NASA missions.

“This year’s RASC-AL projects are not just academic exercises; they will contribute real solutions to some of the most pressing challenges we currently face. The competition continues to highlight the importance of innovation and interdisciplinary collaboration in aerospace,” said Daniel Mazanek, RASC-AL program sponsor and senior space systems engineer from NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, VA.

These finalist teams will move forward to the next phase of the competition, where they will prepare and submit a detailed technical paper outlining their designs, methodologies, and anticipated impacts. Each team will present their concepts at the 2025 RASC-AL Competition Forum in June 2025 showcasing their work to a judging panel of NASA and industry experts for review and discussion.

“The ingenuity and out-of-the-box designs showcased by these students is inspiring,” added Dr. Christopher Jones, RASC-AL program sponsor and chief technologist for the Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate at NASA’S Langley “We are excited to see how their ideas can contribute to NASA’s ongoing missions and future exploration goals. This is just the beginning of their journey, and we are proud to be part of it.”

To learn more about NASA’s RASC-AL Competition, visit NASA’s RASC-AL Competition Website. RASC-AL is sponsored by the Strategy and Architecture Office within the Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters, and by the Space Mission Analysis Branch within the Systems Analysis and Concepts Directorate at NASA’s Langley Research Center. It is administered by the National Institute of Aerospace.

Genevieve Ebarle / Victoria O’Leary
National Institute of Aerospace

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Celebrating 25 Years of Terra

5 min read

Celebrating 25 Years of Terra

Expanded coverage of topics from “The Editor’s Corner” in The Earth Observer

Terra anniversary banner

Image credit: NASA

Nasa personnel gather to celebrate Terra’s 25^th anniversary at the Goddard Visitor Center.

Image credit: NASA

On December 18, 2024, Terra—the first EOS Flagship mission celebrated the 25^th anniversary of its launch from Vandenberg Space Force (then Air Force) Base. Some 70 individuals gathered at the Goddard Space Flight Center’s (GSFC) Visitor Center to celebrate this remarkable achievement for the venerable mission – with 75 more participating virtually.

The gathering began with a reception culminating with some informal remarks in the main area of the Visitor’s Center outside the auditorium from Marc Dinardo [Lockheed Martin, emeritus] who was involved in the design of Terra. He explained that – at the time it was being built in the 1990s – Terra represented a “big step forward” for Lockheed Martin compared to projects the company had done prior to this. He discussed several engineering feats, e.g., fitting spacecraft components into the Atlas rocket used to launch Terra, moving from tape recorders to solid state recorders for data storage, the (at the time) novel thermal system developed to reject heat and protect instruments, and the direct broadcast capabilities.

After the initial remarks, the in-person participants moved into the auditorium where they heard from representatives from Senior management [both from NASA Headquarters and GSFC] as well as from several key figures in Terra’s long history. Each speaker gave brief remarks and shared their perspectives on Terra’s development and achievements. Short summaries of each presentation follow below.

Julie Robinson [NASA HQ—Deputy Director of the Earth Science Division] began by noting that this feels like a family celebration. She said her first personal experience with Terra was submitting a proposal as a young scientist to do research that would use data from Terra. At that time the idea of studying Earth as a system of systems was brand new. She had no idea at that time that more than a quarter-century later, she’d be involved in planning the “next generation” Earth System Observatory (ESO).

Shawn Domagal-Goldman [Deputy Director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate] spoke about how some of the biggest science questions we try to answer are interdisciplinary and cross-instrument, spanning missions and generations, and that the expertise and diverse skillsets of those who have worked on the Terra team over the past 25 years embodies this goal.

Tom Neumann [GSFC—Deputy Director of Earth Science Division (GSFC)] reflected on his early involvement in the Terra–Aqua–Aura proposal reviews. He noted the sheer number of people involved in the mission and the logistical challenges that organizing that size group presented at the time. He also commented on the feeling of family surrounding the Team and how this surely contributed to its remarkable achievements over the past 25 years.

Guennadi Kroupnik [Canadian Space Agency—Director General of Space Utilization] extended congratulations to NASA and Terra team for 25 years of operations. He commented that this “six year” mission has endured far beyond what was planned. Canada’s contribution was the Measurement of Pollution in the Troposphere (MOPITT) instrument with Jim Drummond [University of Toronto] as Principal Investigator. Kroupnik noted that MOPITT Is longest continuously running instrument in Canadian history. He is pleased that CSA has been able to partner with NASA on Terra and looks forward to future collaboration on the Atmospheric Observing System (AOS), which is one of the missions planned as part of ESO.

Jack Kaye [NASA Headquarters—Associate Director for Research of the Earth Science Division] spoke of Terra’s remarkable scientific accomplishments, the creativity of the team, and the intentional emphasis placed on validating the data, and the creativity of the Team. He also noted that the direct broadcast capability was extremely useful and led to many applications. Kaye remarked that the late Yoram Kauffman referred to the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (ASTER) as the “zoom lens of Terra.”

Miguel Román [GSFC—Deputy Director for Atmospheres] described himself as a “child of Terra,” as he began his science career at around the same time that Terra launched and has been involved in various capacities ever since. Román recalled the launch taking place near vineyards, where the team celebrated the successful launch with local wine, to finally sharing a bottle of wine with the late Piers Sellers (who served as the first Terra project scientist) at one of the final gatherings Piers threw before he passed from cancer. Román also mentioned the Our Changing Planet book that four Earth Scientists – including former EOS Senior Project Scientist and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Science Team Leader Michael King and former Aqua Project Scientist Claire Parkinson—both GSFC emeritus – collaborated to write that was published in 2007. This book made use of numerous images and data from Terra’s five instruments – as well as other EOS data.

Kurt Thome [GSFC—Terra Project Scientist] rounded out the presentations, emphasizing again what several have stated in their individual comments – the Terra Team truly is a family. He commented that he’s only been leading the mission for the past ten years and that his work builds on the shoulders of those who came before him. In particular, he acknowledged the slide Miguel Román showed briefly during his presentation that honored those who were part of the Terra family who have passed away – e.g., Piers Sellers, Yoram Kauffman.

Steve Platnick
EOS Senior Project Scientist

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Mar 20, 2025

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Thursday, 20 March 2025

Fallout from the Unauthorized Gemini III Space Sandwich

7 Min Read

Fallout from the Unauthorized Gemini III Space Sandwich

John Young looks at his helmet on the day of the Gemini III flight

Astronaut John W. Young, the pilot for Gemini III, checks over his helmet prior to flight.

Credits: NASA

“I hid a sandwich in my spacesuit,” Astronaut John W. Young confessed in the April 2, 1965, issue of Life Magazine. The conversation about and the consumption of the sandwich, which lasted only about 30 seconds during the Gemini III flight, became a serious matter that drew the ire of Congress and NASA’s administrator after the crew returned home. Congress was particularly upset and brought the matter to leadership’s attention at hearings about NASA’s 1966 budget. Representative George E. Shipley was especially disgusted, knowing how much money and time NASA had spent to prepare the Gemini III spacecraft for launch. The fact that a crewmember brought something into the crew cabin, which Shipley likened to a “surgeon’s operating room,” put the techniques used to prevent a spaceflight mission from failing at risk; crumbs could have made their way behind instrument panels interfering with the operation of flight equipment and the loss of the mission and its crew. Shipley called Young’s antics “foolish” and asked NASA leaders to share their thoughts.

A Beef with Corned Beef

George Mueller, associate administrator for Manned Space Flight, stated unequivocally that the agency did not “approve [of] unauthorized objects such as sandwiches going on board the spacecraft.” And he promised Shipley that NASA has “taken steps, obviously, to prevent recurrence of corned beef sandwiches in future flights. There was no detriment to the experimental program that was carried on, nor was there any detriment to the actual carrying out of the mission because of the ingestion of the sandwich.” Manned Spacecraft Center Director Robert R. Gilruth was more forgiving of Young’s decision. These sort of antics, he told the committee, helped the crews to “break up the strain” of spaceflight, and he hesitated “to be too strict in the future by laying down a lot of rules for men who have this responsibility and who, in all the flights so far, have done such good jobs.” Webb disagreed and said, “this is the United States of America’s space program and, as a matter of policy, we are not going to permit individuals to superimpose their judgment as to what is going to be taken on these flights. I think it is fine for Dr. Gilruth to take a very strong position with respect to the individuality of these men, but from those of us who have to look at the totality of the matter, this was not an adequate performance by an astronaut.”

The loss of a Gemini mission, especially one so early in the program, would have been particularly challenging for an agency attempting to land humans on the Moon where each mission built on the previous flight. The United States was in a race with the Soviet Union, and for Congress at least, the purpose of Gemini and the cost of the space program was far too serious for these sorts of fun and games. For NASA Administrator James Webb, it was a sign that Gilruth was too lax when it came to managing his astronauts. Gemini III was just one example of the lack of control he noticed, and he pressed Gilruth for a report on the sandwich incident to determine if Young should be disciplined or at the very least reprimanded.

The In-Flight Meal

Young hatched the idea during training, when his commander, Virgil I. “Gus” Grissom grew “bored” with the food they practiced with for the mission. Grissom regularly complained about the dehydrated “delicacies” food scientists concocted. Bringing a sandwich onboard, an item that was freshly made and did not have to be rehydrated, “seemed like a fun idea at the time” to Young.

Grissom and Young inside the Gemini III spacecraft

Astronauts Gus Grissom (foreground), command pilot; and John Young, pilot, are shown inside their Gemini III spacecraft as they prepared for their launch from Cape Kennedy, Florida, on March 23, 1965.

NASA

One of the goals of their flight was to evaluate NASA’s flight food packaging and whether the containers leaked when foods were reconstituted, as well as the procedures for disposing of the meal and its packaging after eating. Foods included rehydratable items such as chicken bites, applesauce, or drinks, and compressed foods such as brownie bites. The Gemini food system was not haute cuisine, however, and crews complained about its taste. Young described the chicken bites as “barely edible” in his post-flight debriefing. Don L. Lind, a scientist-astronaut selected in 1967, described the early Gemini food as “strange.” Their class took some to jungle survival training in Panama, and while no one wanted to eat it on the first two days, by the third day they were so hungry that they were willing to give it a try. Another problem was that all rehydrated meals for Gemini were mixed with cold water, which made them less appetizing than a hot meal.

An array of food items in clear plastic packaging is shown on a blue background

Food packets planned for the Gemini III flight, including dehydrated beef pot roast, bacon and egg bites, toasted bread cubes, orange juice and a wet wipe. The astronaut’s method for rehydrating a pouch of dehydrated food with water is shown in the top left.

NASA

A freshly made corned beef sandwich made at a local restaurant sounded like a better option, so Young had fellow astronaut and backup command pilot Walter M. “Wally” Schirra pick one up. Schirra purchased the sandwich for Young, and as he headed out to the launchpad, Young put it in the pocket of his pressure suit.

Nearly two hours into the flight, as Young started his food and waste evaluation, he pulled out the sandwich from his suit and offered it to his commander. As captured on the air-to-ground recordings, Grissom asked what it was and where it came from. “I brought it with me,” Young responded, “Let’s see how it tastes.” He didn’t expect the sandwich to be so pungent, “Smells, doesn’t it?” Grissom took a bite but found the rye crumbled so he placed the sandwich in his suit pocket to prevent the crumbs from floating about the cabin.

Where did that come from?

Gus Grissom

Gemini III Commander

Two days later, nearly a thousand members of the media from the United States and around the world gathered to hear from the crew and NASA management at the postflight press conference at the Carriage House Motel in Cocoa Beach, Florida. Space reporter Bill Hines asked Young about the sandwich, erroneously referring to it as a “baloney sandwich,” and what happened when Gus was offered a taste. “And,” he asked, “what became of the sandwich?” Young seemed surprised, “How did you find out about that?” and then laughed adding Grissom “ate the sandwich.”

John Young and Gus Grissom speak with the press about the Gemini III mission during a news conference at the Carriage House Motel in Florida. Behind the table, left to right, are Dr. Kurt H. Debus, director of Kennedy Space Center, Christopher C. Kraft, Jr., MSC assistant director for Flight Operations, astronauts John Young and Gus Grissom, Dr. Robert R. Gilruth, MSC director, Dr. Robert C. Seamans, NASA associate administrator, and Julian Scheer, assistant administrator for NASA’s Office of Public Affairs.

NASA

Carry-on Restrictions for Spaceflights

Ironically the Gemini Program offered astronauts more control over their flights than during Project Mercury, including the ability to maneuver their spacecraft and to be more independent from Mission Control; but the uproar over this event led NASA to draft rules about what astronauts could and could not take onboard a spacecraft. Starting with Gemini IV, flight crews had to present a list of items they planned to take on their missions. Prohibited items naturally included sandwiches as well as bulky or heavy items or metal that could negatively impact the operation of spacecraft equipment. (NASA still allowed astronauts to take personal items such as wedding bands or coins for families and friends in their personal preference kit.)

Young never received a formal reprimand for the incident but was made aware of Congress’s frustration. Others in the corps were advised to avoid similar stunts and to focus on the mission. The decision to bring a sandwich onboard did not have a negative impact on Young’s career. He was the first astronaut to fly to space six times —two Gemini missions; two Apollo missions, including the dress rehearsal for the first lunar landing; and two space shuttle missions including STS-1, known as the bravest test flight in history. He also served as chief of the Astronaut Office for 13 years.

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Mar 17, 2025

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Saturday, 22 March 2025