Polish astronaut to take pierogi into space on mission to ISS

Feb 3, 2025 | Education, Society

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Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and is published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Astronaut Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski will bring pierogi – Poland’s famous dish of stuffed dumplings – to space with him when he takes part in a two-week mission to the International Space Station (ISS) in spring this year.

“When I started working on the Axiom [mission to the ISS], I learned that I could participate in a project to prepare food that we would take with us,” said the astronaut, quoted by broadcaster TVP.

“I started working with a small Polish family business [and] today I can say that for the first time we will take Polish pierogi into space,” he added.

Uznański-Wiśniewski (previously known only as Uznański but who has taken a double-barreled surname after marrying last month) noted that the pierogi would, like most other food that goes into space, have to be freeze dried to minimise their weight and ensure a long shelf life.

“We worked for several weeks and the company has mastered this process,” he explained. “Thanks to this, I hope the pierogi in space will be as tasty as they are on Earth.”

Speaking more broadly about his mission to the ISS – when he will become only the second Pole in space after Mirosław Hermaszewski, who crewed the Soviet Soyuz 30 spaceship in 1978 – Uznański-Wiśniewski said that he feels a great sense of responsibility.

“Today I represent Poland and an entire generation of Poles – scientists, teachers, students, all those who contribute to the development of science at the local and global level,” he said. “We want to show that space is not only for the great and the good, but for everyone.”

 

“We were the fourth country [to have an astronaut] in space,” he noted. “As a child raised in the 1980s, all I could dream of was becoming an astronaut myself.”

Uznański-Wiśniewski was born on 12 April 1984, which was celebrated in the former Soviet Bloc as Cosmonautics Day, marking the anniversary of the first crewed space flight, undertaken in 1961 by Russia’s Yuri Gagarin. “On every birthday, my mother wished me all the best for Cosmonaut Day,” he recalled.

He also noted that Hermaszewski, who passed away in 2022 at the age of 81, “supported me a lot” during the whole process. “He was the first person who called me the morning after I was selected [as a candidate for the mission]. He congratulated me. I really feel a great connection with him and his space flight.”

Axiom Mission 4 will lift off sometime this spring from Cape Canaveral, Florida aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Dragon capsule. The other astronauts to take part will be Peggy Whitson of the USA, who is the mission commander, Shubhanshu Shukla of India and Tibor Kapu of Hungary.

Speaking alongside Uznański-Wiśniewski, Whitson said that the two-week mission to the ISS “will be filled with the scientific and technological programmes of each government” involved. Poland’s part of the mission is supported by the Polish Space Agency (POLSA) and the development and technology ministry.

Last year, development minister Krzysztof Paszyk said that the experiments conducted will “include studies on the human microbiome, testing innovative materials, and exploring projects in artificial intelligence”.

Poland has bolstered investment in the space sector in recent years, including increasing its contribution to the European Space Agency (ESA) by €295 million for the period 2023-2025.


Notes from Poland is run by a small editorial team and published by an independent, non-profit foundation that is funded through donations from our readers. We cannot do what we do without your support.

Main image credits: ESA and Aw58/Wikimedia Commons (under CC BY-SA 4.0)

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