Space Food Sticks were developed as part of the US Aerospace Program

This ‘energy snack’ was unlike anything this world had seen before. Here’s everything you ever wanted to know about Space Food Sticks ... and why they may soon return.

Space Food Sticks.

Three words that evoke images of the weird, brown bar that launched in Australia in 1971 – before launching millions of delighted grins the land over.

Reminiscent of the protein bars from Snowpiercer with a hint of Soylent Green, Space Food Sticks as a confection were born of the 1960s Space Race, a time when The Future Was Now and the Jetsons ruled.

Marketed and patented by creators Pillsbury as essentially the first protein bar, though a cursory glance at the label will tell you that they’re far from a health food.

Space Food Sticks were a “non-frozen balanced energy snack in rod form containing nutritionally balanced amounts of carbohydrate, fat and protein.”

With the two primary ingredients listed as glucose and corn syrup, this was clearly a wild time to be in advertising.

But did you know that ‘Space Food Sticks’ isn’t just a clever name, and that they actually have their roots at NASA?

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Produced in Australia from 1971 until 2014 (plus a brief revival in 2019 to mark 50 years since the moon landing) in caramel and chocolate flavours, folks either loved or loathed these treats.

The Pillsbury Company’s chief food technologist, Howard Bauman and his team were instrumental in creating the first solid food consumed by a NASA astronaut: small food cubes eaten by Scott Carpenter on board Aurora 7 in 1962.

Space food cubes were followed by other space-friendly foods from Pillsbury’s engineers, like non-crumbly cake, relish that could be served in slices, and shelf-stable meat.

Produced in Australia from 1971 until 2014 (plus a brief revival in 2019 to mark 50 years since the moon landing) in caramel and chocolate flavours, folks either loved or loathed these treats.

Space Food Sticks may have been a food of the future, but many are happy to leave them in the past.

However, if you sit in the former camp, you could hold the key to bringing the Space Food Sticks back.

A change.org petition has been making the rounds, with culinary cosmonauts hoping to launch the snack back onto supermarket shelves.

Now that would be out of this world.

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Originally published as Space Food Sticks were developed as part of the US Aerospace Program