Odd Items in Space

For here am I floating round my tin can
Far above the world Planet Earth is blue
- lryics from David Bowie’s Ground Control to “Major Tom”

New Scientist reports that the next Space Shuttle mission will carry a piece of the apple tree that Newton sat under when an apple on the head led to a theory of gravity. The wood chip is on loan from the Royal Society of London which is celebrating its 350th anniversary of dedication to science.

Other unusual objects that have flown into space include:

1. Metal shielding on the Mars rovers made from World Trade Center scrap after 9/11

2. A 400 year-old lead tag bearing “Yames Towne” to honor the founding of the Jamestown colony in the US. The space shuttle Atlantis flew the tag across the Atlantic in a matter of minutes in low-earth orbit; compared to the many months the original voyage took.

3. When Apollo 11’s Eagle landed on the moon, it carried a piece of wood and cloth from the original Wright brother’s plane.

4. The ashes of the man who discovered Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh, are now flying to Pluto aboard NASA's New Horizons probe and should arrive in 2015.

5. Voyager 1 and 2 have both flown past the planets and out of the solar system. Each carries a record of voices from around the world (and instructions to aliens on how to play the record).

6. Movie items in space include Buzz Lightyear on the space station and Luke Skywalker's lightsaber for the 30th anniversary of Star Wars.

7. Apollo 15 took several hundred collector stamps and stamped them “cancelled” on the moon. This caused a furor over who would profit from selling them and NASA had to change the rules on what was allowed in space.

Pluto discover, Clyde Tombaugh, is not the only person with his ashes in space.
Others include:

Timothy Leary, “Tune in, Turn on, Drop Out” proponent of LSD (1997 orbit)

Gene Roddenberry, creator of Star Trek (1997 orbit)
(the ashes of his wife, Majel Barrett, who played “Nurse Chapel “ and the voice of all Star Trek computers, will fly into deep space in 2012 alongside additional ashes from Gene.)

Dr. Eugene Shoemaker, co-discover of the Shoemaker comet that crashed in Jupiter (1999 moon probe)

James Doohan, “Scotty” of Star Trek (2007 suborbital). Doohan will also accompany the Roddenberry’s on the 2012 deep space probe.

Each year a company called Space Services (formerly Celestis) launches a “symbolic portion” of ashes of anyone for a fee.
$ 700 for a rocket that returns to Earth
$2,500 for orbit
$10,000 for the moon starting in 2011
$12,500 aboard a deep space probe

Bottom Line

The New Scientist space item gallery includes this interesting tidbit:

Madalyn Murray O'Hair, founder of American Atheists, once “the most hated women in America” for her successful lawsuit to stop school prayer, also sued NASA in 1970 after the Apollo 8 crew read verses from the Book of Genesis while in space. She argued that government employees should not promote religious ideas. The Supreme Court threw the case out on the grounds that it had no jurisdiction in outer space.