To infinity and Jurassic park: This is why SpaceX sent a plushy dinosaur with NASA astronauts to space

SpaceX created history on March 31 when they successfully launched two NASA astronauts into orbit and became the first private company to achieve this feat.

US astronauts Doug Hurley and Bob Behnken started their journey towards the ISS from the Kennedy Space Center at 3:22 p.m. EDT (19:22 GMT) on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket and successfully reached entered the International Space Station (ISS) on Sunday.

However, the two NASA were not alone during their journey and were accompanied by a small, shiny plush dinosaur toy.

The toy was first spotted when SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule went supersonic and entered zero gravity and the dinosaur started floating around the pod, the video clip of which went absolutely viral on Twitter soon after.

HERE IS THE VIDEO:

Two humans (and one dinosaur) went to space today #SpaceX pic.twitter.com/U4CbHJShkw

— Brian Bosché (@BrianPBosche) May 30, 2020

According to the numerous news outlets, the toy dinosaur acted as a 'zero-g indicator'. Toys like this have flown with astronauts for years now. 

However, the reason why this dinosaur toy was chosen to fly to space is very special. Both astronauts, Doug and Bob, have a son each and both of the kids are dinosaur enthusiasts.

"That was a super cool thing for us to get a chance to do for both of our sons who I hope are super excited to see their toys floating around with us on board," Mr Behnken said.

the dinosaur was wearing a seatbelt I- #SpaceX pic.twitter.com/Id6eVOSRdY

— Tom (@Tom_Haisem98) May 30, 2020

Yesterday, the @SpaceX astronauts were accompanied by a little dinosaur (aka a model of our earth). Is this a coincidence?

Research dinosaur earth sheeple #dinosaurEarth pic.twitter.com/5jhbyS8UbC

— Dinosaur Earth Society (@DinosaurEarth) May 28, 2020

Back in 2019, a test flight of Crew Dragon was done with an Earth-shaped plush toy, with Elon Mask calling it a "super high tech zero-g indicator".

Super high tech zero-g indicator added just before launch! pic.twitter.com/CRO26plaXq

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 2, 2019