Public interest in the future of humans in space is reaching new heights — it’s almost easy to forget about the early history of space travel, which involves plenty of lesser-known anecdotes about booze, space mutinies, and contraband girly magazines.
Spaceflight historian Amy Shira Teitel runs the YouTube Channel Vintage Space. She posts two new videos every week, and they will make you see space history in a whole new light. For example, some of the astronauts’ saltier language had to be cleaned up for public releases of space transcripts, which ranged from “fart” to another four-letter F word:
Also, did you know? Some of the checklists for the Apollo 12 crews had a couple pics of Playboy Playmates snuck inside of them:
Find out why the Skylab 4 crew staged a mutiny and refused to work for a day after being worked to the bone and burnt out:
Or, why did Gemini’s rear adaptor section have that fancy gold foil on it?
And finally, alcohol’s getting shipped to the ISS for experiments, but did astronauts — or more specifically, Russian cosmonauts — drink in space in the past?