Last updated on December 8th, 2022 at 02:35 pm
This is the way: SpaceX Crew-1 crew takes baby Yoda into space
As it turned out, a charming and powerful stowaway passenger is currently onboard the SpaceX Crew-1 spacecraft flying to the ISS. The key character in The Mandalorian, the plush baby Yoda (the correct name is simply Child), can be seen in live footage from the Crew Dragon, flying freely between four crew members.
Baby Yoda on board is a tribute to the long tradition of manned space travel. This is not the first time various toys have been flying into orbit together with people. The thing is that they act as a physical indicator of weightlessness: under the influence of reduced gravity, they begin to float inside the ship. It immediately shows when the spacecraft goes into orbit and gets into microgravity conditions.
As the Crew Dragon detached from its Falcon 9 launch vehicle, baby Yoda rose from his seat and turned into a floating soft object inside the ship. By the way, during the previous manned flight in May, the crew was accompanied by a plush TY Flippables Tremor Dinosaur named Tremor. He was chosen by the sons of astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley.
In March last year, Crew Dragon flew to the International Space Station without a crew. Then onboard was only a plush toy of the Earth, nicknamed the Earth, which the head of the private space company SpaceX Elon Musk announced just before the launch.
And when Boeing flew its CST-100 Starliner on an unmanned and failed test flight in 2019, there was little Snoopy in an astronaut suit inside the ship. Surely the Crew-1 team together made a decision which indicator of zero gravity to take with them on board, wishing to enlist the support of the Force. However, back in 2019, The Verge reporter Loren Grush suggested taking the cute character of The Mandalorian TV series into space.
Baby Yoda has extensive experience in space flight with his Mandalorian space stepfather, so the Baby should be an excellent member of the crew. We know from the show how much Yoda loves to pull on levers and switches – but thankfully Crew Dragon uses touch controls.
