Firms to Provide Shuttle Crew With ‘One Giant Sip for Mankind’ : Coke, Pepsi Competition Reaches Space

The escalating cola war will move today into the final frontier--space--if the shuttle Challenger takes off as scheduled. Both Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola, encased in high-tech cans, will accompany the astronauts for the first time.

It is really the cans, which are designed to keep the carbonated drinks from going flat in the weightless environment of space, that interests the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. NASA pledged there would be no taste test in space and no drinking the beverages while the shuttle’s cameras are turned on.

But that did not stop Pepsi and Coke from converting the space center into a free-fire zone for publicity Thursday as representatives descended on a press conference here with hats, T-shirts and mock-ups of their space containers. “When you have a product you believe in, something you know is fantastic, you want everybody to know about it,” enthused Coke representative Ashis Gupta. “This is it!”

Coke said it spent $250,000 developing its container, which looks like a regular can with a plastic disk on top. Pepsi representative Tom Williams said his company did not keep track of its development cost. The Pepsi can looks like a shaving cream can with the usual Pepsi label. During the flight, the crew will sample both containers, and technicians will analyze the cans’ performances. One or both of the cans then will be chosen to carry carbonated drinks on future flights.

As the press conference ended, Pepsi intimated that a historic moment was at hand. Black T-shirts were passed out emblazoned with the motto: “One giant sip for mankind.”