Unusual Objects found in the International Space Station

If you could only carry 3.3 pounds’ worth of belongings with you into outer space, what would comprise them? Photographs? A new novel? A book of brain teasers? A guitar?

That’s the possessions allowance for every astronaut who travels to the International Space Station. However, the agencies that send them also throw in an ‘Official Flight Kit’, which includes an array of paraphernalia, often of the nationalistic kind: flags, badges, patches and so forth.

The majority of gear returns home, but according to a recent mashable report, the ISS has nonetheless become host to a rather bizarre collection of left-behind goods.

For the past ten years, a guitar, a ukulele and an electric piano have welcomed astronauts who double as aspiring musicians. In fact, Chris Hadfield caused a stir with them earlier in the year when he created the first music video from outer space – an acoustic version of David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’.

There are also lego models of the Mars Rovers, the Hubble telescope and the ISS itself, constructed by Japanese astronaut Satoshi Furukawa; a box of Christmas decorations, delivered by a group from the Russian Federal Space Agency; and a library made up of six books.

Before March, a fruitcake the size of a garbage bin lid was floating around, but that’s now history, thanks to the Mars-sized appetites of Hatfield and his friend from NASA, Tom Marshburn.

[via mashable]