Peggy Whitson was the first female commander of the International Space Station. When she arrived on the Station, she took part in a long NASA tradition: she brought gifts from Earth for her fellow crew members.

One of those gifts? A pie.

Dispatches from the Aspen Ideas Festival. Full coverage.

In a talk about Station life at the Aspen Ideas Festival yesterday, astronaut Jeffrey Ashby told the pie-in-the-sky story. Traditional gifts that astronauts bring up from Earth tend to be things like books and movies and DVDs, he said -- things to help astronauts living on the Station keep connected to the people and cultures back on Earth.

In Whitson's case, though, the gift was a pecan pie, provided by her husband. "I don't know how they got it past the food people," Ashby said.

The problem, of course, was that in order to make it up to the Space Station, the pie had to be launched into space. Even stored in a locker aboard the shuttle that delivered Whitson and her payload, the piece was subject to g-forces. So by the time it arrived, Ashby said, "the pie was in about half the shell."

That was okay, though. Fortunately, Whitson had also brought up with her a food product that is both hardier and, in space, even more valuable than baked goods: hot sauce.

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