First person to eat in space
Who
Yuri Gagarin
What
first first
Where
Not Applicable ()
When

The first person to eat in space was Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin. During his historic Vostok 1 mission (the first crewed spaceflight) on 12 April 1961, Yuri Gagarin was sustained by a meal of beef and liver paste, squeezed from an aluminium tube. This was followed up with a dessert of chocolate spread, also squeezed from a tube.


During the early years of the space race, there was some concern in the field of space medicine that basic functions such as eating might not be possible in a weightless environment. In 1958, the US Air Force conducted a series of experiments in a Reduced Gravity Aircraft (aka a "Vomit Comet") to see if, for example, the process of chewing and swallowing would still work in a weightless environment. With test pilot (and record holding skydiver) Joe Kittinger at the controls, the aircraft was sent on parabolic arcs, each providing around 20 seconds of weightlessness, during which time test volunteers would try to eat and drink.

Although these experiments proved that food could be consumed without choking, it was not until Yuri Gagarin made the first human trip into orbit that it was confirmed that the digestive system seemed to function just fine without the pull of gravity. As Gagarin was only in space for about an hour and a half, he didn't actually need to eat.