The needs derived from the special diet conceived for astronauts have meant that today it is nothing new to speak of a freeze-dried ice cream, that is to say dehydrated by freezing and then introduced it into a vacuum chamber in which the free water is extracted by sublimation. In this way, the ice cream holds up without melting at room temperature. The first ice cream for astronauts goes back to the space race, in the 60’s and 70’s of the last century, in designs by Whirlpool Corporation for NASA. However, as the hypertextual web (in spanish) explains, this antecedent of freeze-dried ice cream was not implemented due to the lack of acceptance among the astronauts themselves.

The American chef Robert Collignon now resumes this idea to launch a new freeze-dried ice cream called “Cosmik Ice Cream” to extend the life of the product virtually indefinitely, for years. As he says, the difference between his Cosmik Ice Cream and others of the past, and especially at present, is that his is composed only of organic ingredients, without artificial colors and other products that according to him lower the quality of the ice cream. Although in advertise it he uses the argument of a food conceived for the astronauts under the name of “gastronaut ice cream”, anyone can acquire it in the Cosmik Ice Cream webpage and in some stores in Brooklyn. He currently thinks that the best place to open his first ice cream shop is perhaps Margaretville (in New York state).

Robert Collignon’s ice cream is bar-shaped and once in the mouth it tastes just like a conventional one. The idea to create an imperishable ice cream is born when this publicist leaves his agency in Manhattan and takes a radical turn in his life to begin a long journey in a van through three countries, the United States, Canada and Mexico, without being able to store this product the way it should. It has finally come to light thanks to online fundraising through the Kickstarter website.