The icon indicates free access to the linked research on JSTOR. When scientists sent the first humans careening into the vacuum of space, they had no idea what food would do to a body in orbit. Could a person swallow while in weightless flight? Does digestion even work without gravity? In 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin quelled this fear by successfully swallowing and digesting a paste of beef and liver. That same year, cosmonaut Gherman Titov ate crackers while orbiting Earth.
