Jelly beans have been to space.
What do Neil Armstrong, tortoises, and jelly beans have in common? Why, they’ve all been to space, of course. President Ronald Reagan was known for being a connoisseur of the chewy candy, so much so that he provided the astronauts aboard the Challenger shuttle with a bag full of them in 1983 — a gift that resulted in charming footage of them tossing the jelly beans in zero gravity before happily eating them. Reagan was also known to break the ice at high-level meetings by passing around jelly beans, even commenting that “you can tell a lot about a fella’s character by whether he picks out all of one color or just grabs a handful.”
Jelly beans are far from the only unexpected items to have been in space: Musical instruments (including bells and a harmonica), Lego, Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber, and a pizza delivery have also found themselves among the stars.
Back in the 1910s and ’20s, “jelly bean” didn’t just refer to candy. It was also used to describe a stylish young man, though it could be considered a case of damning someone with faint praise — in most cases, jelly beans weren’t thought to have much else going for them. The term could also be used for someone weak or unpleasant; in 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald published a short story called “The Jelly-Bean” about an idle loafer. The song “Jelly Bean (He's a Curbstone Cutie),” originally written in the 1920s, was made popular by Phil Harris’ 1940s rendition.
