Remember astronaut food? You know, those weird dried-out vacuum-packed foods they sell at science museums that are supposedly like the stuff astronauts in orbit have to eat? We always suspected these were actually designed as an early tactic for weeding out children with space travel aspirations who clearly weren’t up to the challenge. As in: “Can’t stomach this? Then I’m afraid you’re unfit to be a space man Earl.”

Not all space products are totally useless, over-priced and gross, though. In fact, reading over RadarOnline’s listicle of 13 Consumer Products Designed for Space Travel you’ll find yourself surprised that some very commonplace objects were originally conceived for our brothers and sisters floating around up there. Like the magnetic strips on credit cards, for instance, which were originally designed as data processing and storage technology aboard spacecraft.

(via Neatorama)