14 World Records That Were Set in Space
Let’s all savor this moment in time, before interplanetary tourists start posting about being the first person to do the Macarena on Mars or whatever.
The First Audio Recording on Another Planet
The Soviet Venera 13 mission beat out all of Parliament-Funkadelic when it recorded itself landing, drilling, and eventually just the smooth sounds of the local wind on Venus in 1982.
The Longest Extraterrestrial Dog Walk
Two Russian dogs named Light Wind and Ember spent 22 days in orbit in 1966, before safely returning to Earth.
The Most Astronauts Crammed Into a Space Station
In July 2009, the six crewmembers on the ISS were joined by seven new roommates, packing in a record-setting 13 astronauts like it was a clown car.
The First Great Ape in Space
In 1961, NASA launched a young chimp lovingly named “No 65” into suborbital space. They waited until he came down alive before giving him a real-ish name, Ham, after the Holloman Aerospace Medical Center.
The First Ape Suit in Space
That viral video and story of a NASA astronaut smuggling a gorilla suit on board a space shuttle and scaring his roommate/coworker is a lie. It’s not future Senator Mark Kelly, but his identical twin, Scott.
The First Presidential DNA in Space
Unless Buzz Aldrin is elected president before he goes to lunar hell, the first bits of presidential hair likely went up there in 2023. Space burial company Celestis announced on President’s Day 2023 that they’d acquired some fur from George Washington, JFK, Dwight D. Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, and they were going to chuck some of it up (along with some of Gene Roddenberry’s).
The Most Days in Space
In 2023, Peggy Whitson tacked on nine days to her record, which sits at 675, four hours, five minutes.
The Longest Single Business Trip
In 2023, Frank Rubio clocked in at 371 days in space, narrowly sneaking past the previous record of 355, set a year earlier.
The First Animals to Go to (and Survive) Space
The dogs and monkeys get all headlines, but the first animals to go to space (and also the first to survive it) were a bunch of fruit flies that the U.S. shot up to an altitude of 69 miles.
The First Living Beings to Fly Around the Moon
The first animals to actually circumnavigate the moon was a batch of wine flies and mealworms (accompanied by some bacteria and seeds) in the Soviet Zond 5 in 1968.
The First Person to Be Completely Cut Off From Humanity
While Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin danced around on the lunar surface, Michael Collins held things down in the Command Module Columbia. When he floated around the back of the moon, he was completely out of sight and radio contact with the rest of his species.
The First Dinosaur Bones in Space
We’ve sent dino DNA up into space a few times, the first being a Maiasaura’s vertebra and eggshell on the Challenger in 1985.
The Fastest Human-Made Object Ever Recorded
It wasn’t a rocket ship, but nuclear collateral. During 1957’s Operation Plumbbob nuclear testing, a manhole cover completely disappeared. To test their hypothesis that it was blown into orbit, and not just disintegrated, they recreated the test and recorded it with a high-speed camera. The thick steel plate was clocked at 125,000 miles per hour, far more than Earth’s escape velocity.
The First Penis Permanently Installed on the Moon
An Andy Warhol doodle that included a rudimentary but unmistakable dong and balls was submitted as part of a “Moon Museum,” six tiles that were to be placed on the moon. NASA ultimately declined, but there’s a rumor that Bell Laboratory scientists agreed to install it on the Apollo 12 lunar lander.
