Kooky Stuff Flown in Space

Each crew member of Space Shuttle mission is allowed to take one kilogram (about two pounds) of memento items along with them, provided they fit into a tiny compartment set aside for such use. This is how things like Buzz Lightyear action figures make it on board, despite strict weight restrictions. On each flight, many flags, patches, and medallions are also flown, along with nationally-sponsored specialty items, such as the recent banner from Yellowstone National Park.


Shuttle Discovery STS-120 flew the light-saber used by Luke Skywalker (actor Mark Hamill) in "Return of the Jedi." In honor of the 30th anniversary of the Star Wars film franchise, Chewbacca (actor Peter Mayhew) presented the famed movie prop to NASA, whereupon it was flown to Texas and displayed for a time at Space Center Houston. It continued it's journey to Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where it was packed into a Shuttle locker and spent two weeks in orbit. George Lucas attended Discovery's launch, and the light saber was later returned to Lucasfilm Ltd. for display in a traveling exhibit.

May the Mass-multiplied-by-Acceleration Be With You. And if you get that joke, you're a huge nerd.


Shuttle Atlantis STS-117 flew a lead cargo tag from "Yames Town", a 400-year-old artifact excavated by archaeologists in 2006. This particular item had made a trip across the Atlantic Ocean around 1611, along with European passengers destined for Jamestown, the first permanent English settlement in the Americas.

In honor of the 400th anniversary of the founding of this first colony of the New World, the metal plate was packed aboard Atlantis in 2007, and took 219 orbits around the Earth – this time crossing many oceans in a fraction of the time! The tag is now in the Archaearium, the historic Jamestown museum in Virginia.


In July 1961, Mercury astronaut Gus Grissom took a roll of 50 Mercury-head dimes with him aboard Liberty Bell 7, America's second space mission. He had initially planned to pass the currency to personal friends and their children, but his capsule lost its hatch and took on water, sinking in 15,000 feet of water. After a 14-year search southeast of Cape Canaveral, Liberty Bell 7 was found by Oceaneering International, Inc. in 1999... with Grissom's parachute and the roll of dimes still inside. One might have thought after 38 years, they would have dislodged and floated away! The Liberty Bell dimes are on display at the Cosmosphere and Space Center museum in Hutchinson, Kansas.


Less famous and quirky, but among my personal favorites, is how a rookie astronaut named Eileen Collins took Amelia Earhart's scarf on her first spaceflight aboard Shuttle Discovery STS-63. Colonel Collins would, of course, go on to become the very first female Shuttle pilot and the first female Shuttle Commander, on STS-84 Atlantis and STS-93 Columbia, respectively. She would also be Commander of STS-114 Discovery prior to her retirement.

Want to OWN something FLOWN? Many organizations, such as SpaceFlori, Farthest Reaches and The Space Store, sell metal craft fragments, pieces of shields and tiles, washers, nozzles, on board checklists, suit and seat materials from all eras of NASA missions. (Please note I am in no way affiliated with any of these organizations, and gain nothing for recommending their sales. Just tellin' ya what's out there!)

Space Updates!

NASA Goddard hosted TOP CHEF: GASTRO-NAUTS and if you missed the initial airing, you can watch the full episode over at the BRAVO TV website. Their teaser clip showed a recording of TJ Creamer and Tracy Caldwell Dyson on the International Space Station, displaying some onboard nutritional choices.


The surprises inside the episode were the three astronauts on the judging panel: Buzz Aldrin, Sandra Magnus and Leland Melvin! If you were ever curious about the guidelines for dining in micro-gravity, this is your show. A few chefs showed us how it's done… and a couple showed us what not to do. I had not seen any cooking shows since the early days of "Iron Chef" (talk about out of the loop!) but I found this program very enjoyable... even if some didn't really understand the guidelines, LOL...

Next update! In the grand worldwide search for the GOODWILL MOON ROCKS, new finds in Korea, West Virginia and North Carolina have filled in some blanks for missing lunar samples presented to all 50 states and over 100 nations by the Nixon administration in 1973.


Update #3!

Since the interesting announcement about how the Senate Put Off SPACE SHUTTLE RETIREMENT, and the exciting news in August that STS-135 had been added to the line-up of missions, the Space Centers have been all a-flurry with activity.

Originally, the new "retirement homes" of Atlantis and Endeavour were to be revealed in July, but this odd year of flux caused NASA to delay the announcement. No new date yet for the big reveals, but fully 21 bids from eight states have been launched in an increasingly competitive race that includes dedicated websites, Facebook fan pages, countless petitions with literally hundreds of thousands of names and incidences of congressional backing.


The Museum of Flight in Seattle even broke ground for the construction of a $12 million, 15,500-square-foot "Human Space Flight Gallery" designed to showcase a shuttle, if awarded. Think maybe they jumped the gun just slightly?!

If they lose their appeal for a genuine Shuttle orbiter, they and many other runners-up may be awarded one of the full-scale shuttle simulators currently used for astronaut training at Johnson Space Center.

Indivisible

9 minutes or 9 years later… doesn't matter. It won't matter in 20 or 40 years either -- everyone will still be able to tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when the World Trade Center towers fell.

In the summer of 1976, my father took this photograph out of the glass-walled crown of the Statue of Liberty in New York.

America's Bicentennial Year

I look at my Dad's snapshot and I feel the weight of the years, the changes. It was a happy time for us as a family, and an interesting time for the country. We led the way. No one had heard of AIDS... and hello, war in the Middle East? We didn't even have a war on drugs yet. I saw Disney World for the first time on that trip, got my first glimpse of NASA rockets, and if I wanted to feel a sense of magic in life, I didn't really have to look much further than Arthur Fonzarelli.

Idyllic? Certainly not. I'm not even suggesting it was remotely tranquil. A president had been forced to resign, the Cold War was heating up, my parents were snarling about gasoline prices, a recession loomed, and for the first time in my childhood, I started hearing the term "gang warfare."

Same day at the United Nations.
Different time, different world.

While I think of those days as less cynical or dangerous, I'd hate to turn into one of those tiresome middle-agers who privately thinks: "My childhood was better than anyone who is unlucky enough to be a child today" because I didn't understand what problems existed across the Earth at large.

Really, when we compare eras with older eyes, we are not appreciating some elevated sense of majestic national innocence; we're just idealizing our own.

I couldn't have known, staring out Lady Liberty's crown, that those twin buildings would violently crumble and change my view of the world. I can only take comfort in the sense that many peoples' view of the world changed that day.

For me, the date September 11th has a secondary remembrance now. Two years ago today, I was part of the evacuation of Galveston before Hurricane Ike devastated the island. Ever seen 56,000 people try to get across one bridge? This day is just filled with things I hope none of us ever see again.

ISS Trivia

Sixteen nations are involved in building and supporting the International Space Station: Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and the United States of America.

The call sign for the ISS is "Space Station Alpha."

With the installation of the final solar arrays, the ISS is now about equal to the length of a football field (including both end zones).


Space Station Alpha now weighs 435,592 kilograms (slightly less than one million pounds) and has, wait for it... eight miles of wiring on board.

Living space inside the ISS is about the equivalent of one and a half Boeing 747 jet liners.

Since October 2000, there have been 26 Expeditions to the ISS, where crew members have spent between 117 days and 6 months in weightlessness.

Each solar day, the space station travels a distance equal to that of a trip to the Moon and back.