Key Points:
In 2001, Pizza Hut made history by becoming the first company to deliver a pizza to space.
The delivery was part of Pizza Hut’s bold $500 million global marketing campaign.
The space pizza, about six inches wide with cheese and salami, was specially designed and tested to remain fresh and flavourful in microgravity.
Imagine the hype of a food item so much that it is getting delivered to a place where there is no oxygen. Sounds impossible, right? Decades ago, the impossible was made possible—a food item was transported to a dark vacuum with no oxygen. There was no glimpse of human civilization for millions, or even infinity, of light years. You guessed it right—this is space.
In 2001, Pizza Hut created history by delivering pizza in space for the first time in human history. This is the Space Pizza Story, where a food item made a trans-atmospheric journey for an Russian astronaut named Yury Vladimirovich Usachov.
Pizza in outer space seems like a far-fetched story. Visualize this—a delivery boy wearing a cap knocking on the window of a spaceship in outer space. Straight out of a fiction story, right?
Contrary to this narration, something similar did happen 24 years ago when the Space Pizza Story transcended the borders of fiction. But no, there was no delivery boy. It began with the collective effort of both Russian scientists and the people working at the American pizza chain Pizza Hut.
The Russian space agency Roscosmos was given the task of resupplying resources at the International Space Station (ISS), which was a usual routine for them. But the delivery of a pizza from Pizza Hut made the routine far from usual.
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This marketing idea emerged from the placing of the American food chain’s logo on a Proton rocket in 2000. The company made history by becoming the first food chain firm to place its logo on the world's largest Proton rocket. The rocket was headed for the International Space Station (ISS).
This move by the restaurant chain cost the company millions of dollars. This strategy of the space ad campaign was part of a $500 million plan which aimed to modernize and improve its restaurants worldwide over five years.
Randy Gier, Chief Marketing Officer of Pizza Hut at the time, stated that the company is widely known and recognized for quality, innovation, and category leadership. “Having recorded numerous ‘firsts’ on Earth, we also wanted to make history by becoming the first company in the world to deliver pizza to space,” said Gier.
The pizza which was delivered to outer space had the classic crispy crust, sauce, cheese, and salami. They opted out of pepperoni because it could not make it through after the final stages of testing. The pizza was approximately six inches wide and was made to fit in the oven of the International Space Station.
Before greenlighting the pizza, which was going to make history, it was thoroughly tested under strict conditions to ensure that it stayed fresh after exiting Earth’s atmosphere.
It was heavily seasoned with spices and salt because of microgravity—a condition where objects seem to be weightless. Randy Gier explained that they are determined to provide their customers with what they want and deliver their pizza literally to anywhere in the world, or even space.
This vacuum-sealed pizza made it to outer space not just for the sake of a marketing stunt. The first person to eat that pizza in space was former Russian cosmonaut Yury Usachov in 2001.
Although, there is another narrative that Yury was not the first man who took his love for pizza literally toward the stars. Another argument suggests that another pizza-loving astronaut named Dom Thomas was the first person to eat pizza in space in 1997.
Prior to this revelation, space foods were always bland and unappetizing. They used to eat pureed meals through tubes, which had to be mixed with frozen ice cubes.
As time went on, and the duration of space missions extended, better options for food became necessary. By the time the ISS began its operations, space food had improved significantly. Astronauts could eat fruits, nuts, meat, seafood, and desserts. [Rh/VS]
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