What Pranks Have Astronauts Pulled?

Since the early days of space exploration, some of NASA's greatest have pulled some great pranks. Learn about our favorites, from a smuggled sandwich to a space gorilla, in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://science.howstuffworks.com/ridiculous-history-5-nasa-greatest-pranks.htm

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff,
Lauren Bogelbaum. Here, on any successful space mission, the cruise
morale is at the top of the list of priorities.
After all, the final frontier can be one high stress workplace,
so it's no wonder that NASA has seen a small

(00:24):
army of passionate pranksters over the years. We're not talking
about anything too wild, of course, that could get dangerous,
because space is absolutely willing and able to kill you. Still,
these serious and seriously well trained crew people need to
blow off steam as much as any of us, perhaps

(00:45):
even more so because not all of us have jobs
that involve being launched out of Earth's atmosphere at seventeen
five hundred miles an hour. That's twenty eight thousand kilometers
per hour, which is fast either way. So in no
particular order, today, here are a few of our favorite
NASA pranks. Let's start off with the tale of the

(01:06):
disappearing reappearing cockroach. Okay, back in November of nineteen sixty nine,
a six legged squatter caused a bit of unrest in
the days leading up to NASA's Apollo twelve mission following
a test run at the Kennedy Space Center, a cockroach
was seen hiding out in the command module that was
to function as the crew's living space. It would also

(01:30):
deliver them back to Earth after re entering the atmosphere.
Not wanting any insect stowaways on the vessel, the launch
director used all sorts of tricks to try to capture
the intruder, but, to the amusement of money, his quarry
eluded him. Apollo twelve took off on November fourteenth, with
three astronauts on board, including Commander Charles or Pete Conrad Junior.

(01:54):
Five days later, Conrad became the third man to ever
walk on the Moon. During the journey home, Conrad took
part in an in flight televised press conference. As the
broadcast wound down, he held up a strip of white cardboard.
On its surface stood what very much appeared to be
a cockroach. Oh. One of Conrad's colleagues at NASA said, Oh,

(02:17):
you found them. Huh, We sure did, replied the astronaut.
He was in the food locker. Is he fat? Asked
the colleague. He's very fat. Conrad answered, alas it was
a practical joke. A Conrad later admitted that the roach
he showed off was just a plastic toy he had
smuggled aboard. To this day, the real bug's fate remains unknown.

(02:40):
Speaking of unauthorized crew members, let's talk about the first
time that a woman transmitted a voice message from a
space station, A decade before the first woman astronaut even
went to space. In nineteen seventy three, Owen K. Garrett
spent just less than sixty full days orbiting Earth on
the Skylab space station. The flight's earth bound support crew

(03:03):
included communications specialist Bob Crippen and astronaut himself among its ranks.
One day, the space station sent Crippen a weird message,
Hello Houston, this is Skylab. Someone said, are you reading
me down there? The voice sounded distinctly feminine. It didn't
belong to any of the three men aboard the vessel.

(03:25):
When Crippen asked who was on the line, the caller
identified herself as Helen Garriot, Owen's wife. Naturally, Crippen asked
her what she was doing up there. She said, well,
we just came up to bring the boys a fresh meal,
a hot cooked meal. They haven't had one for quite
a while. Oh, we thought they might enjoy that. Helen

(03:46):
then nonchalantly said she had flown out to the skylab
and talked about how California looked from space. By now
a bewildered crowd had gathered around Crippen's speakers. Finally, Helen
signed off, saying, well, I see the boys are floating
in my direction. I've got to get off the line.
I'm not supposed to be talking to you. See you later, Bob.

(04:07):
It didn't take Houston long to figure out that this
entire exchange must have been a practical joke, a one
Owen was undoubtedly in on. But how did he pull
it off? The answer was well, very carefully. Before the mission,
Owen and Helen had written and recorded a few lines
of dialogue, making sure to punctuate her lines with pauses

(04:29):
in the audio. This gave Crippen, who'd agreed to help out,
enough time to offer scripted replies to Helen's statements. This
was actually a mystery to NASA until Owen revealed his
methods in nineteen ninety nine. This next one I connect
with personally as a human with the last name that
some people find difficult. Let's talk about Pierre Thwitt, whose

(04:54):
last name is spelled for the record Tuot. Before NASA
recruited him in nineteen eighty five, the Connecticut native had
built up an impressive resume as a pilot with the
US Navy. He took part in three space flights during
his career as an astronaut, the first of which was
a nineteen ninety Shuttle mission known as STS thirty six.

(05:16):
As is the custom, a special patch was designed for
each member of the five astronaut crew. Unfortunately, Thwitt's badge
misspelled his name thhout. From there, some good natured ribbing ensued,
with Thewitt's crewmates calling him Pierre the Out in jest. Ultimately, though,

(05:37):
he got the last laugh when the mission was finally
set to launch on February twenty fifth of nineteen ninety,
Upon entering the room where their pressure suits were kept,
the astronauts discovered that Thwitt had gotten his revenge. At
some point, he had removed the name tags from all
of their chairs, excluding his own, and swapped them out
with erroneously spelled placards. In good sports, everyone seemed to

(06:01):
get a kick out of the stunt, one of the
earliest space pranks that we know of occurred in nineteen
sixty five during the Gemini three mission. At the time,
NASA's and meal plans were carefully constructed to meet calork
and safety requirements, but were not lauded for their appeal.

(06:22):
Previous missions had involved limited options of foods, like a
puree of beef and vegetables in an aluminum tube, or
crushed corn flakes molded into bite sized cubes and coated
in gelatine to prevent crumbling, or dehydrated shrimp. The Gemini
foods were an improvement, but apparently they didn't particularly impress

(06:43):
Gemini three mission commander Virgil or Gus Grissom during training,
which is why the pilot John W. Young pulled out
a corn beef sandwich and offered it to Grissom after launch.
He had smuggled it aboard in a spacesuit pocket. Unfortunately,
it didn't prove very tempting. The bread immediately began crumbling

(07:03):
and the smell of the meat suffused the enclosed cabin.
On the official flight transcript, Young says it was a
thought anyway, not a very good one. Of course. In
our modern era of accessible video technology, astronauts have upped
the ante on pranks. In twenty sixteen, video emerged of

(07:25):
a gorilla chasing astronaut Tim Peak through the International Space
Station to the tune of yackety sacks. It was, of course,
not a real gorilla a but Mission Commander Scott Kelly
in a gorilla suit. Scott and his twin brother, Mark,
himself an astronaut, conspired to get the suit on board.

(07:46):
The chase video was staged, but apparently Scott did surprise
fellow crew members and Russian cosmonauts on the other side
of the station by floating around in the suit, and
he filmed a few science communication videos with it on
which almost makes me wish that this were a video podcast.

(08:08):
Today's episode is based on the article Ridiculous History five
of NASA's Greatest franks on HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by
Mark Mancini. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio
and partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com, and is produced
by Tyler Klang. Four more podcasts my heart Radio visit
the iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts for wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.