The Candy of the Future Is Freeze-Dried
At nine years old, a summer family trip to the Kennedy Space Center in Florida introduced me to many wonders of the world, like the Apollo 11 Moon landing and the rovers on Mars, but none was more impactful than astronaut ice cream. It was a shiny, rectangular block of sugar stationed at the gift shop, a prize for traveling to Pluto and back, marked by a classic Neapolitan triad of vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry—only dry and powdery instead of cold and creamy.
Harder than cotton candy but comparable in lightness, the astronaut ice cream kept me entertained as we left the space center. It had a familiar taste but a texture I’d never encountered before: brittle, almost petrified instead of icy, and easily snapped into little cubes. A soft-but-...