While we typically consider peanuts to be a ballpark snack, they play a huge part in NASA operations. In addition to making sure everything is ready for the spaceship, NASA makes sure they have peanuts on deck. And the tradition isn’t a new one—it’s been going on since 1964. So what’s the history behind NASA and peanuts?
Well, it all started before Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, during the Ranger 7 mission, which was staged at the Space Flight Operations Facility at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The first six rangers weren’t successful so morale was down on launch day Mission Trajectory Engineer Dick Wallace decided to pass out peanuts to lighten the mood.
“I thought passing out peanuts might take some of the edge off the anxiety in the mission operations room,” Wallace later recalled to NASA. “The rest is history.”
Apparently, peanuts are a good luck charm at NASA—when there weren’t peanuts, there were multiple failed or delayed launches. And in one case, a launch that was delayed by 40 days finally took place after peanuts appeared. Today, peanuts can be seen at every major stage of a NASA mission.
There were even peanuts the moment Perseverance landed. How cool is that?
