What would be your one sustenance request if you were being launched into space on a five month mission? Andre Kuipers asked for cheese:

Dutch astronaut Andre Kuipers will have a special treat waiting for him in orbit when he arrives in space next month: 5kg of Amsterdam's finest cheese, its maker said on Saturday.

The 53-year-old Kuipers is due to blast off on board a Soyuz rocket on December 21 with two other astronauts for a five-month-mission on board the International Space Station.

“Andre is a big fan of our cheese and asked us in a letter to arrange with space authorities to see if we could send up some of his favourite Old Amsterdam,” the cheesemaker's spokeswoman Henriette Westland said.

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