When I was a kid, Wolfie’s in Cocoa Beach was in its Go-Go period: Apollo was reaching high gear, the Air Force was busy in its own right out on the Cape and when the work was done, there were legendary bars and restaurants awaiting locals and tourists alike. We were part of the locals.

One of my Dad’s favorites to take me out to eat was a sandwich shop by the Ramada Inn, Wolfie’s. It was kid-friendly, unlike a more adult establishment like The Mousetrap, The Surf or other infamous and legendary Cocoa Beach haunts. They’re all long gone now, as is the nature of restaurants in a resort town. Even the most successful ones fade out after a generation or two.

Wolfie’s had a great kid’s menu, and they let you keep the menu if you cleaned your plate. I never had a problem with that (unless it was something I really didn’t like, like liver) so I had several of these. If you look closely, you can see the lines in it where you could punch out the nose and eye to make a mask. All of the kids’ menus I ever owned were worn out just that way.

Wearing one of course made you a steely-eyed astronaut ready for anything. Such was the imagination of a kid, especially one living on the Space Coast. After all, we saw rockets launch all the time, and many of us had parents and/or grandparents who worked “out at the Cape” in various space-related jobs.

What I didn’t know at the time was that Wolfie’s was a place where an episode of “much ado about nothing” had blasted off.

Wolfie’s Really Was Out of This World

Wolfie’s was the same place that Wally Schirra picked up the infamous corned beef sandwich for John Young on Young’s Gemini-3 flight in March of1965.

The story goes like this: Wally Schirra, inveterate prankster (and one of my Dad’s buddies), was eating at Wolfie’s one day when he and the manager got into a discussion about how terrible the food sent up with the astronauts was. At the time, on-orbit meals were a pasty emulsion that had to be reconstituted with water before the astronauts could eat them. To say those meals were unpopular would be a terrible understatement.

Schirra and the manager, one Carl Ransom, then got a brilliant idea — they would send up a corned beef sandwich from Wolfie’s on the next crewed mission, Gemini 3, that was to be flown by John Young and Gus Grissom. They made some drop tests to see if the bread could survive the G-forces of ascent, which were successful.

When it came time to ready for the launch on March 23, 1965, Schirra gave Young a wrapped corn beef sandwich, which Young hid in his spacesuit and smuggled it aboard the flight.  Later, in orbit, he pulled it out and shared it with Gus Grissom — something he no doubt enjoyed more than the toothpaste-like official meals.

Problem was, Grissom was supposed to be the “control” half of a food experiment where he didn’t eat. Grissom instead enjoyed a bite out of a corned beef sandwich from Wolfie’s.

Dinnertime In Space

From the Gemini 3 Transcript:

01 52 26 Gus Grissom: “What is it?”

01 52 27 John Young:”Corn beef sandwich.””

01 52 28 Gus Grissom: “Where did that come from?”

01 52 30 John Young: “I brought it with me. Let’s see how it tastes. Smells, doesn’t it?”

01 52 41 Gus Grissom: “Yes, it’s breaking up. I’m going to stick it in my pocket.”

01 52 43 John Young: “Is it?“

01 52 49 John Young: “It was a thought, anyways.”

01 52 51 Gus Grissom: “Yep.””

01 52 52 John Young: “Not a very good one.”

01 52 54 Gus Grissom: “Pretty good, though, if it would just hold together.”

01 53 13 John Young: “Want some chicken leg?”

01 53 15 Gus Grissom: “No, you can handle that.”

They might have gotten away with it, but Schirra and Ransom didn’t account for crumbs in a microgravity environment, and apparently Young and Grissom didn’t know any better. After a very short time, caraway seeds and breadcrumbs were floating everywhere in the capsule. Not a good thing to have, considering all the nooks and crannies filled with circuitry and electronics. A seed in the wrong place…well, some folks said that could have caused a disaster.

Somehow, pictures of crumbs on the Gemini capsule control panel made their way back to Earth, where they caught the eye of not only the flight controllers, but also a space-fascinated public.

NASA administrator James E. Webb was “not amused.” Much concern was raised about safety — the greasy bread crumbs were a serious threat to the safe operation of the spacecraft, according to some. The press had a field day.

That in turn got the attention of Congress. Politicians being what they are got upset that “millions of dollars were being wasted” by the astronauts ignoring the space food that had been sent up, and it even got to the point where the the House of Representatives appropriations committee convened a meeting to discuss the entire “incident.”

In the hearing, Grissom and Young’s boss, Bob Gilruth, told the panel that the whole stunt “was a foolish thing to do.” Gilruth did add that “these little things do help break up the strain [on the astronauts.]” NASA also promised this would never happen again.

Later, in the official history of the Gemini program, NASA noted: “What was not made clear, apparent to either the legislators or the press was that the official food was only there for evaluation of its taste, convenience, and reconstitution properties and had nothing to do with any scientific or medical objectives of the mission. No one expected to learn very much about the effects of space food on so short a flight.”

NASA specifically banned any outside food from being brought aboard one of their spacecraft. “Unauthorized sandwiches” were specifically banned. No more corned beef for lunch, toothpaste is back on the menu, boys. A spokesman said at the time that “NASA is not trying to crack down on humor or crack down on gaiety or quench anyone’s high spirits. We just want to stop, once and for all, any practices which might get out of hand and cause harm.”

I’ll leave it to you to interpret exactly what harm may have arisen, but it’s probably reasonable to think that the danger was just as high in Congress as it was aboard any spacecraft in orbit.

Afterwards

It didn’t take long for the Gemini 3 controversy to settle, but be sure that the Sandwich had left a rash on a few rear ends inside NASA. The extent of that, who’s to say, but for a while some would try to fan the dying embers.

A Just Dessert

Years later, in 1981, John Young commanded the first Space Shuttle mission, STS-1. And on the menu for the flight?

Corned beef sandwiches.

Never let it be said that NASA doesn’t have a sense of humor.