Space Shuttle Endeavour's On-Board Souvenir Stash

Robert Pearlman writes: "Seven astronauts, four payloads, and over 11,000 souvenirs are on their way to the International Space Station, among them a U.S. flag recovered from the World Trade Center, a cylinder record which belonged to inventor Thomas Edison, and golf course markers from Scotland and Ireland. Read the entire manifest here."

Comments

Rare

[Karma 50]

a cylinder record which belonged to inventor Thomas Edison

Isn't something like this rare and interesting(*)? Why risk sending it into space just for the novelty value of saying it has done so?

* I tried looking at the official Edision national historic site at http://www.nps.gov/edis/home.htm to see how rare this is, but of course this site was shutdown yesterday!