Object No.
95/48/1Object Statement
Space meal package, for Gemini mission, food / plastic, US Army Natick Laboratories, Natick, Massachusetts and Houston, Texas, United States of America, 1965-1966Physical Description
Plastic rectangular sealed bag containing a complete meal (lunch) for an astronaut. Seven individual items are inside the bag including dehydrated pea soup, freeze-dried salmon salad, compressed cheese sandwiches coated with an edible gelatin film, compressed peanut cubes, a sachet of pineapple-grapefruit juice drink powder, chewing gum and a skin cleaning towel. The pea soup, salmon salad and drink powder are contained in plastic sachets fitted with two tubes: one with a valved nozzle to allow water to be added and the other an eating tube that can be folded until needed. Attached to the outside of each sachet is a bacteriacidal tablet, used to sterilize it after use to prevent spoilage of the residue before the spacecraft returned to Earth. The cheese sandwiches and peanut cubes are vacuum-packed in sealed plastic parcels. The cleaning towel also has its own plastic sachet.Marks
All of the items in the bag are labelled, but only five are entirely visible through the sealed bag - 'SALMON SALAD / 3 oz. water / 5-10 minutes' with '6306' stamped in black perpendicular to the main text and 'WSD / 14' printed inside a circle. On the back reads, 'SERIAL NO. / FP 579'. 'PEA SOUP / 5 oz. water / 2-5 minutes / Let Stand 5 minutes' with '6312' stamped in black perpendicular to the main text and 'WSD / 11' printed inside a circle. On the back reads, 'SERIAL NO. / FP 705'. 'CHEESE SANDWICHES' with '6294' printed in the bottom left corner and 'WSD / 8' on the right. 'PEANUT CUBES' with '6295' in the bottom left corner and 'WSD / 11' in the right. 'PINEAPPLE-GRAPEFRUIT DRINK / 5 oz. water / 2-5 minutes' with '6294' printed and the 'WSD / 11' stamp next to it. On the back of the package written on foil inside the sealed plastic is, 'DAY-1 MEAL-A'.