Top 5 Unusual Objects Lost or Launched into Space
Late evening is a great time to take a break from the seriousness of our earthly lives and gaze at the stars. Especially since right now, above our heads, in addition to rigorous scientific laboratories and thousands of neat communications satellites, there's a veritable... museum of human absent-mindedness circling.
We've all lost keys, gloves, or a TV remote. But imagine what it's like to drop something at 28,000 km/h, knowing you'll never find it again. We've compiled a list of the most unusual, funny, and expensive objects that cosmonauts and astronauts have accidentally (or intentionally) left in orbit.
A $100,000 Tool Bag
One of the most notorious incidents occurred during a spacewalk on the ISS. Astronauts were performing repair work when a tool bag containing approximately 13 kg of tools accidentally slipped from the hands of a space fitter. The glowing white case slowly and gracefully floated into the abyss. The most amusing thing is that the bag was so bright that for a time, amateur astronomers on Earth could see it through ordinary binoculars as a tiny sixth-magnitude star. A few months later, the "hundred-thousandth tool bag" burned up safely in the dense layers of the atmosphere.
A Flying Putty Knife
Dropping a tool in orbit is a common occurrence. Legendary astronaut Piers Sellers dropped a construction putty knife (worth approximately $2,000) while repairing the skin of the shuttle. Sellers, known for his sense of humor, then commented wryly over the radio: "That was my favorite spatula. Just don't tell the other spatulas that." The instrument became an independent artificial satellite of the Earth and circled the planet for several years until gravity returned it "home" (albeit in the form of ash).
Lost Camera Equipment
Space photography is an incredibly expensive endeavor, especially when the equipment decides to "defect" mid-shoot. In 2007, astronaut Sunita Williams was performing complex technical work on the ISS's solar panels. At one point, a professional digital camera worth tens of thousands of dollars detached from its mount and floated gently into outer space right before the eyes of shocked Mission Control staff, who were broadcasting the event live. Interestingly, this is far from the first-time film sabotage has occurred: a similar incident occurred during the legendary Apollo 11 lunar mission. Command module pilot Michael Collins accidentally dropped a Swedish medium-format Hasselblad camera. This incident, coupled with his habit of dropping things, even earned Collins the good-natured nickname "Hole Hands Man" from his colleagues.
Invisible Tomatoes
Astronaut Frank Rubio harvested the first two dwarf tomatoes from an orbital garden bed and lost his sealed bag of the fruits, leaving it poorly taped in the ISS modules. Rubio searched the entire station, but the tomatoes had vanished into thin air. Colleagues jokingly accused Rubio of secretly eating a valuable scientific sample. Justice was only served after Rubio had already returned to Earth: during a spring cleaning, new astronauts found a bag of the ill-fated tomatoes behind the module's forward hatch, now considerably shriveled after eight months. Grown in hydroponic and aeroponic systems without soil, the tomatoes were intended to study the possibilities of producing fresh food during future missions to the Moon and Mars.
Cherry Tesla
Unlike previous listings, this object ended up in orbit entirely intentionally. In 2018, Elon Musk sent his personal cherry-colored Tesla Roadster convertible into space as a playful payload for a test launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket. A mannequin named Starman, wearing a spacesuit, was placed behind the wheel, the onboard computer was programmed to endlessly play David Bowie's "Space Oddity," and a plaque reading "Made on Earth by Humans" was attached to the dashboard. After launch, the Tesla Roadster did not remain in Earth orbit. It now orbits the Sun in an elliptical trajectory, crossing the orbits of both Earth and Mars. It completes a full orbit in one and a half Earth years. Scientists speculate that ultraviolet radiation, cosmic rays, and micrometeorites likely destroyed the tires, leather seats, and paint long ago, although the Roadster could theoretically orbit for millions of years before the fatal collision.
