The Beloved Candy Neil Armstrong Craved During His Iconic 1969 Moon Mission

You know that old cornball Valentine card saying, "I love you to the moon and back?" It's nice to say, and probably even nicer to hear from one's beau. Still, only a select few people can back up their astronomical love with the miles and boot prints to prove it. When an astronaut declares his love for something, literally from the surface of the moon, their words hold a certain amount of gravity. What did the first astronauts to walk the moon love to the moon and back? If you were to ask Neil Armstrong, the Apollo 11 astronaut who took the first steps on the moon, he would say Twizzlers.

Armstrong probably missed more than just those iconic red ropes of not-quite-licorice candy. But, according to several sources (including the Hersheyland website), Armstrong apparently said "I could go for some Twizzlers right now" while milling about the dusty surface of the moon. Frankly, who can't relate? Twizzlers make a great snack to enjoy while multitasking, though there probably would be some complications in consuming the candy through the required astronaut apparel. Of course, there is a significant lack of documentary proof regarding Armstrong's apparent urge to snack on Twizzlers while moonside. Maybe this sweet legend is just that: A legend, akin to the moon's surface being made of cheese. Only sweeter and, frankly, more plausible.

While Twizzlers most definitely didn't make it to the moon on Apollo 11, that doesn't mean the mission was completely bereft of culinary pleasures. After all, the Apollo mission lasted just a little bit longer than eight days; plenty of food was eaten both in space and on the moon. Before the crew of Apollo 11 even launched, the astronauts involved ate steak and eggs, a meal specifically designed to avoid digestive issues in space.

In space, each astronaut was given several meals to consume for each day of the mission. The meals were freeze-dried in plastic bags and rehydrated with water before consuming. Meals consumed by the crew (Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin, Neil Armstrong, and Michael Collins) included beef, scalloped potatoes, and veggies. But what, then, was the first meal eaten on the moon? Even though there were no Twizzlers in space, the first lunar meal was actually on the sweeter side. It included cookies, bacon, fruit juice, and peaches. This may seem like an odd combination but, well, eating anything at all on the moon is a bit unusual. However, it does leave one to wonder how Armstrong could possibly work up enough of a sweet tooth to crave Twizzlers after consuming a dizzyingly sweet combination of cookies, juice, and peaches.

Whether or not Neil Armstrong actually craved Twizzlers from the moon is up in the air (and beyond the atmosphere). What we do know for sure is that there were no Twizzlers in space for Armstrong to snack on at the time of the Apollo 11 mission. In fact, candy wouldn't be taken to space until 1981, when M&M's were brought aboard the Columbia. This must be a particularly sore spot for the Hershey's owned Twizzlers, seeing as M&M's are made by its competitor, Mars Inc. Alas, these little candy-coated chocolates were simply perfect for space travel due to their melt-resistant candy coating. In fact, M&M's had to go through quite a bit of testing before they went into space to ensure they would survive the unforgiving conditions of a space shuttle.

Now to burst another bubble: Turns out, that astronaut ice cream you've probably seen (or eaten) from a gift shop or novelty store is not actually made for astronauts. Instead, that crumbly, dry, sweet stuff was made for retail, not space travel. Specifically, astronaut ice cream is a product crafted for the NASA gift shop. Now, astronauts did have other sweet stuff to choose from, including pudding, which was included in the Apollo 11 mission; you have to admit that astronaut ice cream sounds a lot better than astronaut pudding.