On this day in space! Aug. 31, 1965: NASA's ginormous Super Guppy carrier plane takes 1st flight like a flying whale

On August 31, 1965, NASA's Super Guppy cargo plane took its first test flight.

This oversized aircraft looks a bit like a giant flying whale.

It was built by a company called Aero Spacelines and based on the Boeing B-377 Stratocruiser.

NASA uses these funny-looking planes to transport large cargo, like spacecraft parts and other smaller aircraft. ( See the Super Guppy swallow a T-38 supersonic jet! ) At the time, they needed the planes to transport Apollo program rocket stages from California to Florida.

The Super Guppy has a huge cargo compartment that measures 25 feet tall, 25 feet wide and 111 feet long (7.6 x 7.6 x 33.8 meters).

It can carry payloads weighing more than 26 tons.

To load cargo into the plane, its entire nose hinges wide open so the oversize load can slide right in.

The original Super Guppy retired in 1991 and is currently on display at Pima Air Museum in Tucson, Arizona .

NASA still flies a newer model of the Super Guppy.

Why it mattered The first "Super Guppy," a NASA cargo plane, is now retired and on display at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Arizona.

Pima Air and Space Museum NASA's Super Guppy cargo aircraft takes off from Ellington Field in Houston carrying NASA's space shuttle trainer crew cabin on June 27, 2012.

The cargo is bound for The Museum of Flight in Seattle, Wash. collectSPACE.com/Robert Z.

Pearlman Two retired NASA T-38 trainers mounted on a transport pallet atop a mobile transporter are positioned for loading aboard NASA's Super Guppy prior to ferrying them to El Paso, Texas, for disassembly.

Image released March 21, 2013.