Chix in Space: When Kentucky Fried Chicken Hitched a Ride on the Space Shuttle
- Aeryn Avilla
- Jan 28, 2021
- 6 min read
Updated: Mar 1
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"When people begin living in space, they'll never ponder the age-old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. In space, the answer will be, 'The egg.'" This was the opening to a press release put out by Kentucky Fried Chicken in late 1985 or early 1986 regarding an upcoming launch of Space Shuttle Challenger.
Animals have been flying in space long before humans. Since the late 1940s, countries all across the world have sent all kinds of creatures and critters into the vast unknown, studying the physiological effects of microgravity, radiation, and high stress on living organisms. The Soviet Union used stray dogs, the most famous of which were Laika, Strelka, and Belka. The United States used different varieties of monkeys including Ham the chimpanzee and Miss Baker the squirrel monkey. Even France sent the first cat into space, Félicette. But what about birds?
The first avian space experiment was performed by the Soviet Union in 1979. Soyuz 32 carried fertilized Japanese quail eggs to the Salyut 6 space station to study the impact of microgravity on the development of embryos and to determine whether a Japanese quail could hatch and grow in space, serving as a viable food source for cosmonauts on long-duration missions.
In the early 1980s, an ninth grader from Indiana named John Vellinger designed a science experiment to investigate how microgravity effected the development of chicken embryos. Normally on Earth eggs need to be turned periodically by a hen because gravity pulls the yolk to the bottom of the shell. Vellinger wondered if a microgravity environment would change the way embryos needed to be cared for. He presented the experiment at the Shuttle Student Involvement Program contest hosted by NASA and the National Science Teachers Association and won at the regional level three times. In 1983, when he was a high school senior, Vellinger's experiment won the national contest, so NASA began hunting for a corporate sponsor to provide funding for the experiment to fly in space. In 1985, when Vellinger was a freshman at Purdue University studying mechanical engineering, NASA arranged for him to pitch his idea to the fast-food giant Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC). They ate it up.
KFC sponsored $50,000 and the partnership made more sense than you'd initially think. In 1985, the astronauts of STS-51F Challenger drank Coca-Cola and Pepsi from cans specially designed for consumption in microgravity. The experiment was part of a huge marketing campaign and the most publicized aspect of the mission [1]. Coca-Cola actually flew in space a couple more times in the 1990s and a Pepsi commercial was shot on Space Station Mir during an extravehicular activity. KFC's sponsorship of Vellinger's experiment, like Coke's and Pepsi's trip into space, would be great for public relations.
Chix in Space, officially called the Student Experiment 83-9 Chicken Embryo Development in Space, sought to determine whether embryos could develop successfully in microgravity.
"We hope this will give us valuable data about embryo development under zero-gravity conditions, toward the goal of determining the feasibility of raising food sources...Longer term, this can help us determine whether humans can reproduce in a weightless environment." – John Vellinger
Vellinger explained in a KFC press release, "In space, since there's no gravity, the yolk will be suspended inside the egg which may make a difference in the way that the chick develops. My hypothesis is that without gravity dragging the yolk down, the embryo will develop more efficiently. producing a bigger or better developed chicken." Chix in Space consisted of 32 fertilized White Leghorn chicken eggs nested in an incubator designed by Vellinger, now a sophomore in college and interning at KFC's research and development lab in Louisville, Kentucky, and a KFC engineer named Mark Deuser. According to a KFC press release, the incubator "designed to fit into one of the shuttle's lockers has a system of springs and shock absorbers as well as temperature and humidity controls to protect the embryos from the vibrations and other effects of the shuttle's journey through space."
It takes 21 days for chicken eggs to hatch and the main embryonic development takes place during the first 11 days. The 32 space-bound eggs would spent six days in microgravity. They were split into two groups: Group 1 consisted of 16 eggs on day 2 of the development cycle, so two days after fertilization, while group 2 consisted of 16 eggs on day 12 of the development cycle. The incubator’s environment was to have the following conditions: a temperature of 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit, 65% relative humidity, 21% oxygen level, and 0.1% carbon dioxide level. An astronaut was required to open the incubator’s hatch door eight times for five minutes during the six flight days to replenish the oxygen in the incubator. The crew member would write down observations in a log book each time the hatch was opened as well as the eggs’ condition after launch and before landing. Vellinger would attend to control eggs back on Earth and turn them five times a day.
Chix in Space was to fly on the tenth flight of Space Shuttle Challenger and payload specialist and soon-to-be first teacher in space Christa McAuliffe was in charge of the experiment. Her lessons were to be carried to between 80 and 90 schools that had satellite dishes and available on some cable channels and the Public Broadcasting Service. The Chix in Space lesson plan was prepared by KFC and the science facility of the Louisville Collegiate School. It was an unusually cold morning on Tuesday, January 28, 1986, but STS-51L Challenger was given the “go” for an 11:38 am liftoff. Onboard were commander Francis “Dick” Scobee, pilot Mike Smith, mission specialists Ellison Onizuka, Judy Resnik, and Ron McNair, and payload specialists Greg Jarvis and Christa McAuliffe. 73 seconds after liftoff, unfortunately, Space Shuttle Challenger broke apart and the lives of all seven crew members and 32 chicken embryos were lost.
Fortunately for Vellinger, NASA and KFC were still interested in his experiment and allowed him and his team to reconstruct and refine the incubator that was lost. The new Chix in Space consisted of 32 fertilized broiler hen eggs. Like with the original, half of the embryos were fertilized and incubated nine days before launch while the other half were fertilized and incubated only two days before launch.
Three years after the loss of Challenger and the original Chix in Space, STS-29 Discovery launched on March 13, 1989 on a five-day mission. Vellinger watched both Shuttle launches from Florida. STS-29 pilot and Purdue graduate John Blaha operated the experiment while in orbit. Half the eggs from both incubation groups were allowed to develop fully back on Earth while the other half were dissected. A full incubation period is 21 days. A week after return, the first chick hatched. He was named Kentucky and lived out the rest of his days at the Louisville, Kentucky. All eight chicks that hatched were from the batch of eggs incubated nine days before launch. No eggs from the group incubated two days before launch hatched. Once they reached adulthood, one of the space females mated with one of the space males and produced healthy chicks, indicating that time spent in space as embryos had no impact on reproduction.
Avian space experiments continued throughout the 1990s by the Soviet Union and later Russia. On March 22, 1990 the first healthy quail chick hatched on Space Station Mir and became the first bird in space and the first vertebrate to be born outside Earth's atmosphere. Eight chicks hatched in total but the baby birds could not feed themselves because they could not latch onto anything in the microgravity environment. For later quail experiments onboard Mir, the birds were equipped with little harnesses so they could feed without human help, but since they showed no interest in mating, the use of quails as a long-term food source was not feasible.
Today, the Chix in Space incubator is on display at the Cosmosphere Museum in Hutchinson, Kansas. Vellinger and Deuser cofounded the Louisville-based company Techshot Inc., an engineering firm that develops payloads for space-based research. Their devices flew on later Space Shuttle missions and SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and operated on the International Space Station. One in particular that is similar to Chix in Space is NASA's Rodent Research hardware, which studies mice onboard the ISS.
Author's Note: Please take time today, no matter which day it is, to honor the memories of those who gave their lives for the exploration of space. May humankind continue the exploration of space in their honor.
"The future doesn't belong to the fainthearted; it belongs to the brave." – Ronald Reagan
[1] Though personally I think the mission being the first and only abort-to-orbit of the Shuttle program is more interesting.
Bibliography
Pearlman, Robert. “When KFC *Actually* Went to Space: Before Zinger 1, There Was 'Chix in Space': CollectSPACE.” CollectSPACE.com, 29 June 2017, www.collectspace.com/news/news-062917a-kfc-zinger-chix-space-mission.html.
Pike, Jared and Giles, Nicole Elizabeth. “John Vellinger: From Chix in Space to a Company in Space.” Purdue University, September 28, 2018. https://www.purdue.edu/space/john-vellinger-from-chix-in-space-to-a-company-in-space/
Valentine, Katie. “The Amazing Story of the Cold War Space-Egg Race.” Audubon, 15 Dec. 2017, www.audubon.org/news/the-amazing-story-cold-war-space-egg-race.
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