Tang
It's from 1959, before you were born.
- Maker
- General Foods (Kraft)
- Type
- Powdered drink mix
- Debuted
- 1959 (popular by 1965)
- Note
- flown on NASA missions
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About
As of 2026, it's 67 years old.
Tang is orange-flavored powder that became a cultural icon by going to space. Developed in the late '50s and largely ignored until NASA carried it on John Glenn's 1962 flight, it spent the next several decades letting kids believe they were drinking exactly what astronauts drank.
Cheap, shelf-stable, and almost cartoonishly orange, it turned 'stir powder into water' into a breakfast event and a marketing triumph built on borrowed rocket glory.
Sweet, vivid, and forever space-adjacent, Tang is the drink that convinced a generation that the future tasted like artificial orange.
Tang through the years
Reaches store shelves
A sweet orange-flavored powdered drink mix.
Flies into space
Carried on John Glenn's spaceflight, forever tying it to NASA.
