Virgin Galactic: Mum and daughter join other unusual space travellers
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A mum and daughter team are heading to space as part of Virgin Galactic's first space flight. 18-year-old Anastatia Mayers, who's a student in Aberdeen, and her mother Keisha, won the tickets to the flight in a competition. The pair of new-astronauts - who'll be joined by 80-year-old Jon Goodwin - may be breaking new ground... but they are joining a long list of unusual visitors to space. Here's just a few.
Back in 2019, scientists sent some slime to the International Space Station. Once the slime reached the ISS, astronauts aboard the station played games with it, made slime-filled balloons, slime bubbles and even sprayed each other with slime in order to understand how a fluid, which isn't water, behaves in microgravity.
A car isn't the type of transport you'd think of in space but tech billionaire Elon Musk launched one of his own sports cars into space! Sent up above the atmosphere on-board the Falcon Heavy's first test flight, Mr Musk didn't want to risk sending something important on the world's most powerful rocket - instead Elon decided his old red Tesla roadster with a mannequin, dressed in a space-suit, strapped in the driver's seat could make the journey!
Believe it or not, Shaun the Sheep has also made it to the stars. The Aardman and C大象传媒 favourite represented the European Space Agency (ESA) on the unmanned Artemis 1 mission around the Moon in 2022. David Parker, director for human and robotic exploration at ESA, said: "This is an exciting time for Shaun and for us at ESA. We're woolly happy that he's been selected for the mission... it's a giant leap for lambkind."
'May the Force be with you' - although technically Luke Skywalker's lightsabre has always been in a galaxy far, far away, a version of it travelled on the Discovery shuttlecraft in 2007 to mark the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars film in 1977.
Edible delights being sent into space has been a popular idea - and a way to study the effects of space. Amongst the strangest is this pattie and chips sent in 2017 by a chip shop in Hull, England. It was attached to a weather balloon to make its journey up and was studied by local schoolchildren!
This giant satellite, that looks a bit like a disco ball, is called the Humanity Star. It was sent into space in January 2018 and spent several months up there before re-entering the Earth's atmosphere. The company behind it says the Humanity Star is a "reminder to all on Earth about our fragile place in the universe", and will "create a shared experience for everyone on the planet".
In 2011, when Nasa launched its Juno spacecraft on a mission to learn about the planet Jupiter, they included three Lego figures on-board! They hoped getting the toys involved would inspire more children to be interested in science and technology. But these aren't the only toys to head into space - a Buzz Lightyear figure from the film Toy Story spent 450 days in space too!
Recordings of various sounds have been sent up to space in the hope that aliens or other life forms will hear the noises. The sounds have included a shepherd herding his sheep, rainfall, a heartbeat, thunder and someone sawing wood.
- Published28 September 2018
- Published1 October 2018
- Published28 July 2017
