Whether by carelessness, by accident, voluntarily or by necessity, since the space race began, there are many things that humans have abandoned to their fate in outer space. Some have lost track, others have disintegrated or re-entered Earth, and thousands of them continue to orbit our planet.
The Vanguard I
The oldest human object still in space is the Vanguard I satellite, which was launched in 1958 from Cape Canaveral. It was the fourth satellite that humans put into orbit , and the first that made use of solar energy. Its transmitter stopped sending signals six years after launch, but to this day it continues to circle Earth. In 2009 it reached 200,000 laps of our planet, which is a distance of about 10 billion kilometers . Only the Pioneer and Voyager probes have traveled farther than the Vanguard I.
Edward White’s glove
Edward White was the first American to do a spacewalk, in 1965, and he was also a pioneer in generating space debris. During the Gemini 4 mission, one of White’s gloves escaped from the capsule and was lost in space. The glove was orbiting the Earth for a month, at about 28,000 kilometers per hour , until it finally disintegrated when it came into contact with the Earth’s atmosphere.
A toothbrush
That same year, during the Gemini 7 mission, astronaut Jim Lovell lost his toothbrush in outer space. His mission partner, Frank Borman, shared his with Lovell for the remainder of the mission . The shared brush is currently housed in the National Museum of American History.
Golf balls
The fifth human being to set foot on the moon, Alan Shepard, took advantage of his trip, in 1971, to also become the first person to practice a sport outside of Earth . On his tour of the Earth’s satellite, Shepard hit two golf balls that are probably still on the lunar surface. In 2006, Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Tiurin put a small golf ball into orbit around Earth after hitting it from the International Space Station.
Family memory
Astronaut Charlie Duke, before traveling to the moon in 1972, asked his children if they would like to go with him. Of course, the little ones answered yes, so Duke brought a family portrait with him and left it on the surface of our satellite. On the back of the photograph, the astronaut wrote: “This is the family of astronaut Charlie Duke, from planet Earth, who landed on the moon on April 20, 1972.” It is probable that the snapshot is still there, although the intense solar radiation will surely have deteriorated it considerably.
Ash and urine
In addition to human-made objects, there are also “natural” remains. On the one hand, the ashes of some people, including those of the creator of Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry , whose remains were scattered through space in 1997. On the other, urine and excrement of astronauts: until not long ago, the waste of the crew of the International Space Station dumped directly outside ( currently most of it is recycled, turning urine into drinking water and faeces into compost ). Some astronauts have pointed out that the floating golden crystals that urine forms when it comes into contact with cold outer space make up one of the most beautiful spectacles that can be seen.
