Did you know that the space shuttle once launched the Statue of Liberty into space?
In fact, there were two “Lady Liberties” on board Discovery when it lifted off on its fourth flight in April 1985. To be fair, each statue was only 15 inches tall (38.1 centimeters), but they were also each made of copper that was removed from the full-size statue during its then-still-ongoing restoration.
After the weeklong STS-51D mission was over, one of the space-flown statues was placed on display, and the other was melted down to create copper seals, which were then sold to the public by the Statue of Liberty Ellis Island Centennial Commission.
The copper dated back to the statue’s original 1875 to 1884 construction. A gift from France, the Statue of Liberty was originally intended to commemorate the United States’ centennial in 1876.
Now, as the US
enters its next 250 years, there has been an additional four decades of spaceflights when other objects from American history have been carried into Earth orbit. Which raises the question: What is the oldest known piece of Americana to have been launched off the planet?
Oldest astronaut, oldest artifact?
For the purposes of this article, Americana refers to any piece of memorabilia that dates as far back as to the Revolutionary War and signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. There are certainly older objects that have entered space—a
1611 Jamestown “luggage tag” from the first permanent English settlement was flown on Atlantis in 2007, for example—but fall outside this article’s scope.
John Glenn, one of the original Mercury astronauts and a US senator, was the oldest person to fly into space when he launched on a 1998 Discovery mission at the age of 77. Among the items he chose to take with him were two connected to early American history.
“After consultation with staff in the Office of Senate Curator, the Senate Historical Office and Senate Library, Senator Glenn selected this ‘Manual of Parliamentary Practice’ for the STS-95 OFK,” the Senate Curator’s Office
described in a 2023 article, referring to the Official Flight Kit that held mementos and memorabilia for post-flight presentation. “The ‘Manual of Parliamentary Practice’ was a practical choice because of its relatively small size and weight, but it is also a meaningful text in Senate history.”
<small>Source: Ars Technica</small>
