A closer look
Russian cosmonaut Aleksandr A. Serebrov brought a gray Nintendo Game Boy loaded with Tetris aboard the Soyuz TM-17 spacecraft in 1993, making it the very first video game played in outer space. The device spent exactly 196 days orbiting the Earth and traveled over 41 million miles before returning to gravity and eventually selling at a Bonhams auction for nearly two thousand dollars. Serebrov supposedly used the puzzle game to pass the time and relieve stress while trapped in a floating metal tube above the planet. It makes perfect sense when you think about it; nothing screams interstellar relaxation quite like the mounting panic of a straight four-block piece refusing to drop while the frantic Russian folk music drills into your remaining sanity. Because when you are isolated in the infinite, terrifying void of space, the only logical comfort is organizing falling bricks for no tangible reward
