This Corned Beef Sandwich Almost Caused an Intergalactic Incident

A 50-year-old corned beef sandwich, preserved in resin, sits on a table at the Virgil I. Gus Grissom Memorial Museum in Mitchell, Indiana. The ordinary-looking sandwich is a memento from space. In 1965, a young astronaut named John Young snuck the sandwich into his space suit shortly before the launch of Gemini 3, NASA's first two-man space mission.

The seemingly innocuous prank landed Young in front of Congress. Bringing the sandwich — technically contraband — into space could have endangered the entire mission. Space food is coated and broken into bite-sized pieces because without gravity, crumbs can go everywhere. After Young took a bite of the sandwich, bits of bread and meat got into his eyes and floated throughout the cabin. They didn't cause any real damage, and the mission was a success, but no sandwich has made it into space since. Still, it made for a good story, and so an identical sandwich was purchased and preserved for infamy. Long live corned beef.