Stuffed animals in space: An appreciation
Space fans on Twitter got a new mascot Friday.
A small stuffed owl blasted off to the International Space Station with a trio of space explorers Friday, catapulting it into our hearts at the same time.
The little owl was a gift given to Russian cosmonaut Alexei Ovchinin by his daughter before launching on the Russian-made Soyuz spacecraft to the station.
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This cute talisman serves an important purpose.
The three crewmembers -- Ovchinin, cosmonaut Oleg Skripochka, and NASA's Jeff Williams -- hung the stuffed animal from the Soyuz to see when they enter weightlessness.
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When the owl started floating, they knew they were also weightless, despite being strapped tightly into their Soyuz seats.
The pink owl was also one of the stars of a press conference before the new crew blasted off to the space laboratory.
The tiny gravity-monitoring owl is far from the first stuffed toy to fly to orbit.
"The tradition of carrying small toys as weightless indicators dates back to the very first time a human was launched into space 55 years ago next month," Robert Pearlman, a space historian and the editor of collectSPACE.com, told Mashable.
"Yuri Gagarin launched on Vostok 1 with a small doll and a tradition was born."
A plush R2-D2 was used as the talisman on a Soyuz mission in 2015.
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And a 2014 crew used a stuffed snowman Olaf from the movie Frozen as their gravity talisman.
"My youngest daughter is 8 years old and she selected that as a talisman," cosmonaut Anton Shkaplerov said during a pre-launch news conference.
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Another snowman also flew to space more recently aboard the Soyuz carrying astronaut Scott Kelly and cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko to the station for a yearlong mission in 2015.
The snowman belongs to Gennady Padalka, the commander of the Soyuz that brought the three crewmembers to space.
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“I do have a lucky charm,” Padalka said before launch. “It’s a snowman. I’ve taken it with me on my last three flights. My youngest daughter gave it to me, so I’ll take it along this time as well.”
Cosmonauts have also used a plush Angry Bird toy and a Smokey Bear among others as talismans.
"Over the years, the cosmonauts added to the tradition by having their children, or their crewmates' children, select the doll for the flight," Pearlman added.
"That has led to some interesting and popular choices, including Frozen's Olaf snowman, a red Angry Bird and small hippopotamus wearing a cosmonaut flight suit — complete with a miniature version of the crew's mission patch."
Aside from the talismans, NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg also sewed a stuffed dinosaur for her son made from scraps of material found on the Space Station during her stay in 2013.
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Miriam Kramer worked as a staff writer for Space.com for about 2.5 years before joining Mashable to cover all things outer space. She took a ride in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight and watched rockets launch to space from places around the United States. Miriam received her Master's degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University in 2012, and she originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee. Follow Miriam on Twitter at @mirikramer.
