Since the moment when people learned that things can be launched into space, they do it all the time. In addition to the recent launch of Tesla in the air, letters, flowers, a packet of chips, a hamburger and even a doll for adults were sent from Earth. And these are not the strangest things that have traveled to outer space.

We will tell you about unusual items that people ever sent into space, and their history.

1. Light Sword

“May the force be with you,” NASA engineers said in 2007 and attached Luke Skywalker’s sword from the “Return of the Jedi” to the Discovery shuttle. So the space community celebrated the 30th anniversary of the Star Wars saga. George Lucas and the entire crew watched the launch of the shuttle and the way the Jedi heritage gets closer to the cosmos.

By the way, they decided not to send the sword to a distant, distant galaxy. After he visited the ISS, he was returned to Earth and placed in the Museum of the Space Center.

2. Sandwich with beef

This sandwich was the contraband property of astronaut John Young, who participated in the Gemini-3 mission in 1965. The astronaut did not really want to eat food in tubes, so he brought with him to the space station a sandwich with beef and rye bread.

What was his mistake? The sandwich could become one of the most notorious sandwiches in history: bread crumbs and excess moisture could get into the on-board equipment and cause a malfunction. It’s good that this did not happen.

By the way, astronauts still eat sandwiches, but make them with tortilla, and not with rye bread. Chris Hadfield showed on the video how he makes himself a snack.

3. Figures of LEGO

In 2011, NASA launched the interplanetary station “Juno” to study Jupiter. A special series of LEGO figures was placed aboard the station, which represent Jupiter, Juno and Galileo. Of course, they did it for a reason. NASA and LEGO signed a contract and launched the figures into space to encourage children to do science.

By the way, aluminum was used instead of plastic for making figures, so that they could withstand the conditions of flight. And the production of the kit cost LEGO $ 15 thousand.

4. Playboy magazine

This is a checklist, which astronauts attach to a spacesuit during an exit into outer space. The inscription on the right: “Do you see interesting hills and valleys?”

Yes, yes, space flights are a bit lonely. Therefore, on November 14, 1969, NASA launched “Apollo-12” together with a large number of different magazines, among which was a fresh release of Playboy. The find was incredibly exciting to the astronauts and gave rise to an endless number of jokes among the mission members. They even quoted the text from the journal articles and fastened the clippings to the companion’s spacesuit. And what? The work is nervous.

5. Family photo

Continuing the tradition of bringing strange things to the moon, the astronaut of the mission “Apollo 16” Charles Duke left a family photograph on the surface of the satellite. On the reverse side it says: “This is the family of astronaut Duke from planet Earth. April, 1972 “.

6. An unusual space suit

Somewhere above our planet an unusual companion in the form of a spacesuit flies. Do not be scared, before you send the spacesuit into space, the astronaut was removed from it. The old suit was stuffed with batteries, various sensors, meters and sent into orbit.

In fact, this thing is a Russian project aimed at ensuring that astronauts of the ISS can keep in touch. For some time, the satellite in the unconventional “package” broadcast on the radio and answered the questions of the inhabitants of the Earth, but soon Ivan Ivanovich (the so-called space suit) fell silent and turned into space debris.

7. Buzz Lightyear

In 2008, the character of the cartoon “Toy Story” went to space together with the Discovery mission. As a true astronaut, Buzz spent 450 days in space, then returned to Earth in September 2009.

Naturally, the toy in space turned out to be not just that. Such an event was organized by Disney in honor of the opening of new attractions in Disneyland.

8. Pizza

Pizza Hut wanted to be the first company in the world to deliver pizza to space. And in 2000 this desire came true.

Russian cosmonaut Yuri Usachev ordered a pizza on the ISS, however, in this case Pizza Hut paid for the pizza, and as much as € 790 thousand. And the delivery obviously took a little longer than the standard 30 minutes. But the main thing is, the pizza has reached the right place.

9. Gold plate

On board the Voyager and Voyager-1 were attached gold plates containing messages to extraterrestrial civilizations.

They were images of a man and a woman, the coordinates of the Earth, photographs of life and nature. Also in the composition was a plate with the sounds of the Earth (you can listen to the NASA website), photos of food, water, X-rays, the DNA scheme and human evolution.

10. Advertising

Humble yourself, you can not escape from advertising. She is everywhere. Even in space. In 2005, 100 thousand advertisements were sent to space about everything in the world: from jobs to rent of housing and sale of knick-knacks.

What for? One of the advertising sites decided to show that they can send out your advertising even into space. When publishing an ad on the site it was necessary to put only one tick – and your message will go to space.

11. Bonsai

The famous Japanese artist Azuma Makoto sent his new works straight into space 2 – an exotic 50-year-old bonsai tree and a floral composition of orchids, lilies, hydrangeas and iris.

The project was named Exobiotanica, and the idea was to show: beauty can exist anywhere, even in space.

12. Olympic torch

As a rule, the Olympics starts in Greece, and ends in the city where it is held. But in 2013 the Olympic relay race ended in space. Cosmonauts Oleg Kotov and Sergei Ryazansky carried out the solemn transfer of the torch to each other. Of course, the torch could not burn, but it looked cool.

Ilon Mask launched the Tesla machine into space

Space X, the space company Ilona Mask, in 2018, on February 6 at 23:45 Moscow time, launched from the cosmodrome in Florida (USA) the carrier rocket Falcon Heavy. This is a test flight. In a rocket in a special capsule was a personal car Mask Tesla.

Before the start, Ilon Mask said that he was launching the car to Mars “for the sake of laughter,” reports CBS News. “Many do not understand what the purpose of flying a car to another planet. Yes, it obviously is not. Usually, when a new rocket is tested, they put something really boring on board, for example, a block of concrete, a piece of steel or something like that, “he said. As The Independent, The idea of ​​the Mask is to show that people’s travels into space are possible, that building missiles is not as expensive as NASA says, private companies can develop and create such launch vehicles, transport cargo (like Tesla) and take them they are rented to the state.