It’s a bird, no it’s a plane, no, it’s a rubber chicken launched into space. Yes, you read that right – a rubber chicken was recently launched into space for a scientific study.
One rubber chicken has now boldly gone where no other rubber chicken has ever gone before – space. Meet Camilla the rubber chicken. Brought to our attention by our friends over at DVICE, Camilla must feel as though she is the luckiest rubber chicken on Earth…well, if she had feelings that is. This lucky rubber chicken was tied to a large helium balloon and then let go to drift 120,000 feet above the surface of the Earth. It was done as part of a study to look at solar storms.
Definitely a bit of a bumpy ride, I wonder if Camille needed some Dramamine?
Along for the ride up into space with Camilla were: a camera inside a modified lunch box, a few GPS trackers, two dozen sunflower seeds (not to eat, remember, Camilla IS rubber after all), and seven insects.
This was all part of an experiment conducted by high school and fifth grade students at a school in Bishop, California. Camilla made it through the journey all right but her insect pals were not so lucky as none survived the trip into space. The data the students were able to collect from the experiment has not yet been released and the sunflower seeds have not yet been harvested. However, this short video below provides us with some insight to how it was like for our friend Camilla the rubber chicken up in space.
This is not Camille’s first jaunt into space and she was on loan to the school from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory. Camille is the mascot in residence, providing encouragement to young people looking to pursue careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math, or STEM.
For other interesting NASA related articles, read about the retirement of the Space Shuttle Discovery or the Atlas of the Sky created by NASA.
