Did you know that the space shuttle once carried a miniature 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.
The question remains: what is the oldest known piece of Americana to have been launched off the planet? For the purposes of this article, Americana refers to any piece of memorabilia that dates as far back as the Revolutionary War and the 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: a ‘Manual of Parliamentary Practice’ written by Thomas Jefferson in 1801, and a 13-star flag that was used to identify General George Washington on the battlefield.
Both the manual and the original flag are now in museums and deemed too fragile and irreplaceable to risk being launched into space. The copy that Glenn flew was a 1993 reprint, and the flag was made for Glenn to fly in 1998. Another replica flag steeped in American history was aboard the International Space Station from November 2014 through June 2015.
It’s worth noting that while there are older objects that have entered space, they fall outside this article’s scope. However, one artifact believed to be the oldest Americana to have flown into space is a copper spike removed from the USS Constitution in 1992 and dating back to 1797. The spike was aboard Atlantis for the entirety of the STS-71 mission, from June 27 through July 7, 1995.
A fragment of wood from the USS Constitution, believed to be of similar age, was launched into orbit with the Hubble Space Telescope on STS-31. This piece was on loan at the US Naval Academy Museum in Annapolis, Maryland.
In conclusion, while there are many objects that have been carried into space by American astronauts and spacecraft, the oldest known pieces of Americana to have left Earth’s orbit include a copper spike from the USS Constitution and a replica flag used during the bicentennial commemorations of General Washington’s death in 1799.
Source: Original article