Humanity has long been fascinated by space. In our quest to expand our understanding of the universe beyond Earth and communicate with extraterrestrial life, we’ve sent a bizarre slew of items and creatures into the final frontier — including music, animals, text messages, pizza, Craigslist ads, human remains and a car, among other things. Because why not? But of all the strange things blasted off into space, what did we send to learn something (and not just because we can)?
1. Slime
Once an internet obsession, astronauts were slimed in 2020 in the International Space Station with the satisfyingly gooey DIY toy. Nickelodeon sent about two liters of slime to the space station for astronauts to play games, toss slime-filled balloons, and make slime bubbles to understand how a fluid that isn’t water behaves in the absence of gravity. The findings of the experiment could impact how liquids are handled in space and could influence plant watering on the space station, carbon dioxide and wastewater processing, along with life support systems on future deep space missions.
