Astronaut Water Bottles

This photo (on left) of Gemini “9” Astronaut Water, from The Imaginary World site, took me by surprise because I had been thinking that non-fizzy, packaged water as a mass-market consumer product did not occur until the 1980s. (See: Bottlemania)

This 1960s space-capsule-shaped bottle from Canada Dry would appear to be an anomalous tie-in product designed to capitalize on popular interest in space travel at the time. I could see how the bottle would appeal to kids, but water? In the mid-1960s with no sugar?

According to the copy at the bottom of the bottle Canada Dry seems to had an arrangement with Nasa to supply drinking water: “for astronauts and space systems in flight.”

The matching item on the right is a space-capsule-shaped-bottle—shaped bank.

(More astronaut bottles, after the fold…)

The small photo of Gemini “8” Astronaut Water shows that Canada Dry had also provided water to an earlier flight. I wish I knew more about Canada Dry’s efforts in this area. Bottles are not supposed to work so well under weightless conditions. Did they provide water in pouches for the actual flights? The outer-space tie-in did not seem to be enough to make this a successful product, since very few examples are around to be found.

Another capsule shaped bottled beverage, Flavor Pack “Space Sip” (made by Ft Bountiful Enterprises) even containing a sweetened beverage, seems equally rare and commercially unsuccessful. (Available here on ebay for $15 + $4 or $5? shipping.) To the right, some astronaut bottles of the anthropomorphic type.

Randy Ludacer
Beach Packaging Design