Space Food, Cream of Tomato Soup, Apollo (Blue)

This spacefood package contains dehydrated cream of tomato soup from the Apollo era. It was not flown on any mission, and would have required the addition of hot water before consumption.

Each Apollo crew member was provided with three meals per day which provided approximately 2,800 calories per day. The food was freeze-dried and was easily reconstituted by the astronaut with a water probe which dispensed one half ounce of hot or cold water as required, each time the trigger button was pressed.

The food was protected with a 4-ply, laminated film coating. This protected the food from loss of flavor, moisture and oxygen invasion, spoiling and excess crumbling, and was used on both the rehydratable and the bite-sized foods. The rehydratable foods also had an 8-quinolinol sulfate tablet attached to reduce spoilage in the used food wraps.

Transferred from NASA to the Museum in 1999.