That Time An Astronaut Ordered Pizza From Space

Food cravings can happen anywhere, at any time. Even in outer space. That's what astronaut Mike Massimino learned the hard way during one of his trips into zero gravity, as his desires for pizza resulted in him taking some pretty drastic measures. As the space explorer recounted after a recent screening of the documentary One Strange Rock, the journey away from Earth found Massimino craving some 'za in a major way, to the point where he literally ordered a pizza from the stars in order to have it ready and delivered by the time he made it back to the blue planet. We're sure pizza shops have received their fair share of crazy calls, but this space-based order really takes the pie. Did he still expect it to be delivered in 30 minutes or less?

As recounted by Food & Wine (via Thrillist), Mike Massimino simply couldn't wait a second longer than he needed to to get his lips around cheesy, greasy pizza goodness. It's not clear which pizza place had the distinct honor of giving the astronaut the delivery he ordered hundreds of miles away, but we hope they walked away with a pretty good story to tell too (and perhaps a reasonably good tip as well), as Massimino did after the National Geographic screening. It's not secret that astronaut food is, honestly, pretty bad. Edible, obviously, but that's being charitable. Space food doesn't have the same satisfaction that comes from curing your cravings for some good ole' fashion local pizza.

Mike Massimino's expertise in operating a functional space craft gave him the wise thinking to make the pizza order in advance, so it would be ready and waiting once he arrived back home. Why wait longer than he needed to? Once it was all said and done, what's more satisfying than a nice, refreshing bite of pizza to welcome you back to your home planet? It's hard to think of many things better.

Pizza is so popular with astronauts, in fact, that scientists are literally trying to find a way to make pizza in space. That's right; they want to give astronauts a way to satisfy their pizza desires away from the comforts of gravity. We're sure it'd be such a relief from the freeze-dried treats often made available to astronauts in orbit, and according to astronaut Randy Bresnik, space pizza is actually pretty good. In fact, it might have even been better than pizza on Earth, according to him. Like the old saying goes, even when it's bad, pizza is still pretty good!

There you have it! As space travel evolves, we are taking great strides to advance our space-based consumption of pizza. Because even astronauts need to satisfy their food cravings. The next evolution will be whether or not pineapple belongs on space pizza. (Pineapple belongs to pizza, of any variety, for the record.)