With no humidity or temperature changes, a guitar in space never needs tuning, says Hadfield. Arm weight helps earth-bound musicians track the placement of frets, so astronaut-musicians have to relearn finger placement without gravity’s help.

There’s no need for a guitar strap—again, no gravity—but the musician needs to be hooked onto a fixed object to avoid floating around bumping into things during a set.

Musicians aboard the ISS play an acoustic Larrivée guitar that has circled the earth more than 50,000 times. An identical model stays on Earth at mission control.

“It’s cool playing a guitar in space,” Hadfield explained on a 2012 visit to the Larrivée factory. Yes. It is.

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