Weirdest man-made things ever sent into space

Just because there is no gravity in space doesn’t mean you can’t drop something. Captain Heide Stefanyshyn-Piper happened to drop something pretty expensive while out on a spacewalk outside of the International Space Station. She was outside of the station attempting to repair a solar array when she found out that a grease gun had leaked inside of her tool bag. While trying to clean out the bag, she lost her grip on it. The bag and its contents cost around $100,000.

Though it might seem disgusting to consider, many astronauts have reported that watching their waste float off into space is one of the most beautiful things they’ve ever seen off-planet. Of course, today the International Space Station has a filtration system that turns urine into drinkable water, reducing the amount of frozen urine crystals that are floating around Earth.

If you ever find yourself barbecuing in Earth’s orbit and need a spatula, just wait a bit and one might just make its way around to you. In 2006, astronaut Peter Sellers was working with some heat tile putty during a spacewalk when he lost a tool. Peter’s spatula floated away. He was quite upset about losing the tool and claimed it was his favorite one.

In 2008, a Buzz Lightyear toy was sent to the great beyond. The action figure was sent via crew shuttle to the International Space Station where it spent 15 months orbiting the Earth in a joint venture to promote the new educational partnership between NASA and the Walt Disney company. During its 468-day mission, the figure was documented in photos and video with fellow crew members.

For those we’ve lost that were truly out of this world, there are some incredible memorial services, including one where a person’s remains can be out of this world. “Celestis”, a Texas-based company, offers a service called space funeral flights, in which the cremated remains of a loved one are launched into space on board a rocket. In fact, thу remains of Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the Star Trek universe, were on board the inaugural flight in 1997.

This one does make sense, we should be sending humanity’s most delicious treat into space. It turns out that even the crew on board the International Space Station can order a pizza if they get hungry. It just takes a lot longer than 30 minutes to arrive. In 2001, Pizza Hut made a million-dollar deal with the Russian space program to send a pizza to cosmonaut Yury Usachov, who was serving on the ISS.

In 1969, Apollo 12 successfully landed on the moon for the second time in history. NASA astronauts Charles P. Conrad and Allen Bean made a trip to the lunar surface while Richard Gordon stayed in orbit. Prior to takeoff, the mission’s backup crew, led by David Scott set up a few pranks for the astronauts. In charge of creating the crew’s handy risks checklist, a type of cheat sheet to remind them of tasks, the backup crew added images taken from Playboy magazine.