 There is a tradition at JPL to eat "good luck peanuts" before critical mission events, such as orbital insertions or landings.As the story goes, after the Ranger program had experienced failure after failure during the 1960s, the first successful Ranger mission to impact the Moon occurred after a JPL staff member had decided to pass out peanuts to relieve tension.The staff jokingly decided that the peanuts must have been a good luck charm, and the tradition persisted.