4 historical artefacts that have made it to space 

Apart from astronauts, many others have made it to the space. Two brilliant examples are Laika the dog and the monkey duo Able and Baker. all of them have been fortunate to journey to the outer space in their lifetime. But guess what? Living beings aren’t the only ones who have travelled to space. Some significant pieces from history also did so. 

In fact, in the recently conducted uncrewed Artemis I mission of NASA, the spacecraft Orion carried memorabilia from Apollo, USA’s last lunar programme that happened in 1972. It included a commemorative coin from Apollo 8, a bolt from Apollo 11 engine, and a mission patch from Apollo 17. That made us take a deeper look into other artefacts that have made it to the space. Here is a list. 

Amelia Earhart’s wristwatch 
The world remembers Amelia Earhart as the first woman to have flown solo across the Atlantic in 1928. During that flight, she was wearing a wristwatch (that belonged to her mother) that she later passed on to a departmental store owner near her family home called H. Gordon Selfridge Jr. However, after her disappearance in 1937 (while trying to circumnavigate the world), Mr. Gordon gave away the watch to Ninety-Nines, an all-female global organisation of pilots founded by Earhart. Later, the President of the organisation Joan Kerwin won the item at an in-house auction to keep it as a personal memorabilia of their founder. She was the one who lent it to NASA astronaut Shannon Walker who wore it to space on the Russian Soyuz TMA-19 mission in 2010. What’s interesting is that, when the pioneering aviator’s watch was stationed at the International Space Station, it was fittingly orbiting over the Atlantic.  

A replica of Nobel Prize 
As some of you might know, the universe was formed due to the Big Bang; and scientists believe that some of the trace amounts of radiation from it still continues to prevail on Earth. Called the cosmic microwave background, it was discovered accidentally in the 1960s. Fast forward to 1989, American cosmologists John Mather and George Smoot was able to measure this phenomenon using a custom-made satellite for which they received the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics.   

Now, as per tradition, all Nobel laureates are given one or more replicas of their medal. Incidentally, Mather (who is now a lead scientist for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope Programme) got three copies. Guess what he did with them? He presented two to NASA and one to the National Air Space Museum, USA. To honour Mather and his unparallel contributuion to the study of the universe, his colleague and NASA astronaut Pier Sellers borrowed the replica from the Museum and carried it to the space in 2010 during his own last space shuttle mission.  

The Olympic torch 
For those unaware, it is an Olympic tradition to carry the iconic Olympic torch from Olympia in Greece to the Olympics venue, ahead of the games each time. But guess what? The Olympic torch have made it much farther, i.e., to the outer space.  

In 1996, ahead of the Summer Olympics, the torch flew aboard on the British space shuttle Columbia. Likewise, four years later, the same torch once again made it to space on another British space shuttle Atlantis, ahead of the Sydney Summer Olympics, 2000. However, it was only in 2013 that the Olympic torch made it outside a spacecraft. Russian cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergey Ryazansky carried the torch during their spacewalk outside the International Space Station. It was right prior to the Sochi Winter Olympic Games.  

The remains of 9/11 attack 
In order to send tribute to the people who lost their lives during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack in the USA, NASA, on several occasions have launched wreckage from the disaster to space. For instance, in December 2001, Endeavour space shuttle carried a torn American flag that was recovered from the blast site at the World Trade Centre. Similarly, in 2003, the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity both were said to be made from metal (aluminium) recovered from the ground zero of the 9/11 attacks, be it the cable shields or the rock abrasion tool used for drilling.