Five of the Weirdest Things We’ve Launched Into Space
Ever since we landed on the Moon, we’ve been obsessed with sending things into space: a car, the music of Beethoven, dogs, etc. In fact, it’s getting to the point where NASA seems to be just launching whatever they’ve got lying around, and the aliens who find it are definitely going to think we’re weirdos.
LEGOs
NASA and LEGO have been collaborating since the ‘90s, usually promoting space exploration by inviting kids to build tiny spaceships and stuff, but they’ve also literally gone to space. In 2002, the Spirit and Opportunity Mars rovers were each accompanied by a whimsically named LEGO astrobot, and in 2011, a probe sent to Jupiter carried three LEGO figures of Galileo Galilei and the Roman gods Jupiter and Juno, which is really gonna confuse the planets’ local populations.
Dinosaur Bones
In 2021, Jeff Bezos decided he didn’t have enough to do or things to spend money on and arranged to pack 200 fragments of dromaeosaurid bones into a four-inch vial and launch them 65 miles into space. In something of an anticlimax, they only stayed up there for about 10 minutes. They really can’t catch a break when it comes to things falling from space.
‘The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)’ by Missy ‘Misdemeanor’ Elliott
In 2008, the Beatles’s “Across the Universe” became the first song transmitted into space, which makes sense. In 2024, “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)” became the second, traveling 158 million miles from Earth to Venus, though NASA’s reasons are less clear, unless they just want the Venusians to get turnt. "Missy has a track record of infusing space-centric storytelling and futuristic visuals in her music videos, so the opportunity to collaborate on something out of this world is truly fitting,” they explained, so they apparently just asked her what her favorite planet was and sent her music there. You’re welcome, Venus.
Rubber Testicles
In what they repeatedly insisted was not an April Fool’s prank, the Robin Cancer trust launched a pair of rubber testicles 22 miles into space on April 1, 2019, the first day of Testicular Cancer Awareness Month. A camera attached to the nads provided “something we’ve never seen before – a balls-eye view of the U.K.,” which any aging British Invasion groupie can tell you isn’t true.
Dick Doodles
The Voyager Golden Record was a massive project years in the making, a collection of every image and sound a Cornell University committee wanted any extraterrestrial life form who happens upon it to know about humanity. That initially included nude photos, but following objections from the public, those images were replaced with anatomical drawings that are, if anything, even more explicit.
Sure, the sounds of human laughter and sights of our highest art are great, but what we really want the aliens to know is how weird our genitals look.
