NASA Sent a Spider to Space. What She Built Made No Sense.

In August 1973, an astronaut on Skylab opened a tiny glass vial. Inside was a spider named Arabella, and she refused to come out. She was up there because of one question from a 17-year-old student, Judith Miles: can a spider still build a web when there is no "down"? This is the true story of Arabella and Anita, the first spiders in space: the tumbling, the web nobody saw being built, the astronaut steak, the clue hidden in their silk, and the discovery it led to forty years later on the International Space Station. 0:00 Intro 0:40 The Question 1:12 Four Thousand Ideas 1:45 How to Build a Web 2:19 The Man Who Drugged Spiders 2:53 Arabella and Anita 3:24 Liftoff 3:55 Back to the Vial 4:29 Threads in the Corners 4:59 The Web Nobody Saw 5:32 Ugly, but Working 6:01 Steak for a Spider 6:32 Anita's Turn 7:05 The Price 7:39 What The Webs Remembered 8:09 No Top, No Bottom 8:42 Forty Years Later 9:20 The Lamp 9:50 One Question 10:23 With a Web Sources: Witt, P. N. et al. (1977). Spider web-building in outer space: evaluation of records from the Skylab spider experiment. Journal of Arachnology 4:115-124. Zschokke, S., Countryman, S., Cushing, P. E. (2020). Spiders in space - orb-web-related behaviour in zero gravity. The Science of Nature. NASA: Skylab 3 mission and Skylab Student Project archives. Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum: Spider "Arabella" and "Anita", Skylab 3. #space #NASA #spiders Oddly Told — true stories, strange twists. Subscribe:    / @watchoddlytold