Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Fifty Years in Space...and Counting


Today marks 50 years since Russian Cosmonaut,Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space.  Yuri's 108 minute journey around the world in outer space launched Earth into "the future" and paved the way for many space travelers who followed.  I just got home from a super fun gathering of space nerds (yes, true space nerds love being called space nerds) to celebrate this day in history.  The party was hosted by my friend Joi (the biggest space nerd I know).  We drank Tang, we ate astronaut  ice cream, we built a space shuttle out of Legos, and we shot foam rockets at each other.  There was also an attempt at some stargazing but the hazy sky didn't quite cooperate, oh well, we still had a good time.

Anyway, I thought this would be a fun opportunity to scour the internet for any space-related knitting or knitting-related space stuff.  Here are the items Google pointed me toward (most of them are knit but there are a few other art forms sprinkled throughout), listed in the order in which they were found...

Found here

Found here

Found here

Found here

Found here

Found here

Found here

Found here

Found here

Found here

Found here

Found here

Found here

Found here

Found here

Found here
Yes, that last one is a rubber chicken wearing a knit blue flight suit.  Her name is Camilla SDO and you can find out more about her here.

I have to admit, I was surprised I didn't run across anything about anyone ever actually knitting in space.  I mean, I know there are much more important things to do in space than knit (oddly though, I can't think of any off the top of my head) but it seems like at some point, some astronaut must have brought yarn along to see what it would be like to knit in zero gravity.  So, if there happen to be any astronauts out there reading this, I want to hear your knitting stories!  If there truly are no existing stories of knitting in space, why not?  I would be more than happy to teach knitting techniques to any astronaut who is interested in being the first knitter in space.

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