CATNIP

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Barnaby: The First Black Cat in SpaceBarnaby was a sleek black cat with emerald eyes and a tail that never stopped twitching. He lived at the space centre, where the scientists fed him tuna and let him nap on the launch plans. One night he curled up inside a soft bag of gear marked “Mission Payload.” By morning the bag was sealed, the rocket roared, and Barnaby woke weightless among the stars. Through the tiny window he watched Earth shrink to a blue marble. He paddled through floating food pellets, batted at drifting screws, and left perfect paw-print constellations on the dusty console. When the radio crackled, a startled ground crew heard only a proud “Mrrrow!” Three days later the capsule splashed down. Scientists opened the hatch and found Barnaby sitting calmly on the pilot’s seat, whiskers still full of cosmic dust. They named the mission after him. From that day on, every black cat who gazed at the night sky knew: one of them had already been there.