A Larrivée parlour acoustic guitar has travelled 50,000 times around the Earth in the International Space Station, making it easily the most widely travelled guitar known.
Commander Chris Hadfield, an astronaut and guitar player says that music was identified as one of the fundamentals of human happiness, when the psychology of the ISS crew was being considered.
"When you're a long way from home it's really important not just to take care of the technical side, but you've got to take care of the people and the psychological side. We have psych support in Houston, and they realised that music is one of the things that's fundamental to people, so they were looking for a guitar to put on the space station," he said.
Hadfield says it's fascinating to play in space: "It's cool playing guitar in space because it floats in front of you. You don't need a strap."
"It's also cool to float around the room and bump into things while you're playing guitar. You don't usually have to hook your feet into something on Earth in order to play a guitar," he adds.
Hadfield has high ambitions for his ISS tunes, saying: "I think it would be really good to record some original songs on orbit, some of the earliest space-faring songs."
The ISS often links up with groups here on Earth, like the recent Angry Birds Space launch, and Hadfield thinks a live ISS guitar lesson would be ideal.
He said: "I'd love to be able to play on orbit and have it beamed down to a school and have a school play along with me ... but we're still working on how to do that!"
Watch the full interview above.