Ramen in Outer Space!
I'm not making this up!
Here's a story even better than the almost Mafia-like Japanese ramen wars of a few days' past . . . Ramen in space for Japanese astronauts! No, REALLY!
Jul. 27--OSAKA -- Nissin Food Products Co. showcased on Wednesday a vacuum packed instant noodle specially designed for Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi to eat during the U.S. space shuttle Discovery's current mission. "This tastes good," Nissin Food founder and Chairman Momofuku Ando said on eating the "Space Ram" noodles in front of reporters. "I'm happy I've realized my dream that noodles can go into space," he said. The company said it has no plan to commercialize the product. . . . In an effort to prevent the contents from flying off in zero gravity while in space, the noodles are in the form of bite-size balls. The soup was also made stickier than usual. |
So that's what on the menu aboard the space shuttle Discovery for its latest flight. Well, whaddyaknow? More here, complete with photo of those space noodles. This further report says that space noodles come in 4 flavors: soy sauce, miso, curry, and pork. For all you gentle readers who have a command of Japanese, try this version.
Space ramen! Houston, we have a problem. *giggle* Still, I'm confident that space ramen tastes better than freeze-dried ice cream . . . I now have a silly image in my head of a packet of ramen floating in a space helmet, Milky Way galaxy as background, while the theme music of "2001: A Space Odyssey" blares out.
After all, as this headline declares: "After conquering Earth, instant noodles head to space." Have we all been colonized by ramen and not even realized it? (Well, we might be addicted to the stuff -- the Nissin company alone supposedly does sell about 65 billion packets of ramen a year.)
In sum? NASA's got quite a menu for its Japanese colleague. Bon appetit, Mission Specialist Soichi Noguchi!