Space

Stories filed under Space in the Weird Science History archive — 50 stories from the strange edge of science.

• From a Pilot Cut Out of His Own Suit to Moonwalks Sewn by a Bra Company: A Short History of the Spacesuit
• The 480 Million Copper Needles America Scattered Around Earth to Build a Radio Ring
• The 'Astronaut Drink' NASA Never Invented — and the Moonwalker Who Said It Sucks
• The Backyard Dish the Neighbors Thought Could Control the Weather — and the Man Who Used It to Hear the Milky Way
• The Docking Target That Showed Up in Orbit Looking Like an Angry Alligator
• The Doorstop That Fell From Space — and Spent 30 Years Holding Open a Shed Door
• The Planet Galileo Drew in His Notebook 234 Years Before Anyone Discovered It
• The Space Tomato That Vanished for Nearly a Year — and the Astronaut Accused of Eating It
• The Weather Satellite That Fell on Its Face Because 24 Bolts Were Missing
• The Astronaut Ice Cream That Astronauts (Probably) Never Ate
• The Newspaper That Took 49 Years to Admit Rockets Work in Space
• The Giant Space Mirror Russia Built to Turn Night Into Day — and the Antenna That Snagged the Sequel
• The 2,478 Baby Jellyfish NASA Sent to Space — and the Ones That Came Home Dizzy
• The Dung Beetles Scientists Fitted With Tiny Hats to Prove They Steer by the Milky Way
• The Great Wall 'Visible From the Moon' — Promised 215 Years Before Anyone Could Check
• The Nuclear Watchdog Satellites That Caught the Universe Exploding Instead
• From a Wet Spacesuit to a $23 Million Toilet: A Short History of the Space Toilet
• The Woodpeckers That Grounded a Space Shuttle — and the Plastic Owls NASA Sent to Guard It
• The Senator Who Went to Space and Came Back as a Unit of Nausea
• The Airstream Trailer That Was Supposed to Save Earth From Moon Germs
• The Flake of Chipped Paint That Made a $1.5 Billion Telescope Nearsighted
• The Mars Lander That Carried a Blur Ringtone and a Damien Hirst Painting — and Then Went Quiet for 11 Years
• The Moon Golf Shot That Went 'Miles and Miles and Miles' — and Actually Went 40 Yards
• The Most Expensive Hyphen in History Was Not a Hyphen
• The Moon Rocket Struck by Lightning Twice — and the Switch Nobody in Mission Control Had Heard Of
• The Planet That Was Officially Named 'George' for 67 Years
• The September That Jumped From the 2nd to the 14th
• The Two Tortoises That Flew Around the Moon Before Any Human Did
• The Venus Lander That Tested the Hardness of Its Own Lens Cap
• The Corned Beef Sandwich That Got NASA Hauled Before Congress
• The Kitchen Microwave That Impersonated a Signal From Deep Space
• The Plan to Set Off a Nuclear Bomb on the Moon So Everyone Could Watch
• The Million-Dollar Space Pen Myth — and the $128.89 Pencils NASA Actually Bought
• Laika: The Moscow Stray Who Orbited Earth, and the Truth Hidden for 45 Years
• The Unit Mix-Up That Doomed a Mars Probe
• The Astronomer Who Spent Eleven Years at Sea to Watch Venus Cross the Sun — and Missed It Anyway
• The Astronomer Who Saw Canals on Mars That Weren't Real
• The Astronomer With a Metal Nose and a Beer-Drinking Elk
• The Crash-Test Foam That Invented Your Mattress
• The Element Discovered on the Sun 27 Years Before Anyone Found It on Earth
• The Farm Boy Who Discovered Pluto — and Now Sails Past It Forever
• The Genesis Capsule That Crashed Because a Switch Was Installed Backward
• The Graduate Student, the 'Little Green Men,' and the Nobel That Got Away
• The Newspaper Hoax That Put Bat-People on the Moon
• The Pigeon Mess That Turned Out to Be the Echo of the Big Bang
• The Rocket That Exploded on Live TV and Got Called 'Kaputnik'
• The Spaceship That Was Supposed to Ride Atomic Bombs to Saturn
• The Teenager Who Sent Two Spiders to Spin Webs in Space
• The Time a Falling Space Station Got a $400 Littering Ticket
• The Year in Space That Turned Twin Astronauts Into a Living Experiment

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