Big Bird could have been on the Challenger space shuttle when it exploded on January 28, 1986.
One of the reasons why he wasn't? His costume was too big.
Caroll Spinney has played the beloved Sesame Street character since the beginning, and he told the story of his brush with spaceflight in "I Am Big Bird," a documentary about his life as the character, released in 2015.
"I once got a letter from NASA, asking if I would be willing to join a mission to orbit the Earth as Big Bird, to encourage kids to get interested in space," Spinney said in an essay in The Guardian in 2015. "There wasn't enough room for the puppet in the end, and I was replaced by a teacher."
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