Science
On SpaceX's historic launch, an adorable dinosaur stuffed
In their historical flight to the space today, Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley had a company: a dinosaur bagged into one of the space crew dragons seats.
In preparation for the launch on Wednesdays and Saturdays, Mika McKinnon geophysicist quickly identified the toy as a TY Flippables Tremor Dinosaur. On Saturday, shortly after astronauts came into orbit, a new item called "Demo 2 Dinosaur Plush Toy" caught SpaceX's spotlight at $25.
The background to this particular toy has not yet been revealed, but toys as well have been floating for years with astronauts and cosmonauts. When the toy starts floating, it shows the huddled passengers that they are zero g and weightless. In March 2019, on the uncrewed Crew Dragon test flight, a plush Earth flew to the ISS. Before the launch, Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO, tweeted the picture as "super high technology zero-g"
Super high tech zero-g indicator added just before launch! pic.twitter.com/CRO26plaXq
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 2, 2019
Little Earth, or 'Earthy,' was an enormous hit for the ISS crew and stayed on board, although the crew Dragon came home. Behnken said last year that he was expecting Earthy and Hurley to welcome him on board. He is a full-scale member of the station crew as soon as we get there, hopes that he can take us through the emergency brief, "Behnken said last March in the interview.
Dinosaur toys were previously flown on the ISS. As a toy dinosaur was sewn for her son Jack during the ISS during astronaute Karen Nyberg (who happens to be married to Hurley) in 2013.
Tomorrow, May 31st, after 19 hours in orbit, dinosaurs, behnken and hurley will join Earthy on the ISS. Docking is scheduled to take place on 10:29AM ET on NASA TV and will be broadcast live.
