The building where the Space Shuttle was assembled had its own weather system. The Vehicle Assembly Building, a structure of 3,664,883 cubic meters of volume, 160 meters high, at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral (Florida), had 125 vetilation blades to keep air humidity under control: the volume of the building was such that, on the wettest days, they formed rain clouds just below the structure ceiling. In the photo: a breathtaking view, from bottom to top, of the gigantic hangar.
NASA canceled the original moon landing video recordings. In 2006, NASA admitted that it had lost track of the magnetic tape reels that had recorded the non-standard signal arriving from the Moon during landing on the Moon at special reception centers. In 2009 the space agency admitted that the tapes had been erased, according to a standard procedure, because they had also recorded telemetry data and had not been marked as “to be kept”. Fortunately, some good quality images were packed in the archives of the CBS TV station and at the NASA Johnson Space Center, and have been restored. You see: the story of the (complex) story.
Cape Canaveral’s area code looks like a countdown. To call the Kennedy Space Center or in the surrounding areas, the number must be preceded by the code “321”, chosen specifically with a petition to underline the importance that space launches have for this region.
NASA also paid dearly for the Anglo-Saxon system of measures. In 1999, the Mars Climate Orbiter, a satellite that was to analyze the climate of Mars for the first time, burned in the atmosphere of the Red Planet due to a discrepancy in measurements. A part of the software in charge of controlling the thrust needed by the onboard rockets calculated in “pound force” (Anglo-Saxon system), another part in “newton” (metric system). The inconsistency had resulted in a communication problem between two groups of NASA engineers: the second assumed that the conversion had already been made, and did not recheck the calculations.
In case we find alien life, there is already an office in charge of protecting it. It’s aboutOffice of Planetary Protection of NASA, which protects the celestial bodies of the Solar System from biological contamination with microorganisms accidentally brought from Earth (but which also protects the Earth from any return contamination). In the photo, Enceladus, the moon of Saturn under which a brackish ocean is hidden.
# See also: Dangerous asteroids: Earth without defenses
NASA listened to a “roar” from space. In 2009, NASA ARCADE’s radiometer, located on board a probe balloon, detected a very loud radio noise, six times more confusing than expected, which hindered listening to the electromagnetic emissions of the stars (the mission of the probe). The origin of the roar – precisely called, “space roar” – is still mysterious.
Your smartphone is much more powerful than the computer that took us to the moon. The Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), which brilliantly managed both the command module and the lunar module of the Apollo missions, boasted just 152 kbytes of on-board memory overall – between ROM and RAM – and a calculation frequency from 0.043 to 2 MHz. Parameters that are laughable today, but which allowed us to travel the 356 thousand km without any hitch, and as many on the return journey, which separate us from our satellite.
# See also: the story of the scientist who saved Apollo 11
NASA has been accused of having “invaded” Mars. In 1999, three Yemen men sued the space agency for “invading” the Red Planet with the Landfinder Pathfinder and the Sojourner rover (pictured) and without their permission. The three claimed to have “inherited” it from their ancestors, 3,000 years ago.
NASA pays you to stay in bed for months. The Envihab program, in collaboration with ESA, studies the effects of prolonged weightlessness – simulated with inactivity and the horizontal position maintained for months – on the human body, to develop rehabilitation and fitness programs for astronauts. Even if spending months lounging around might sound inviting, the effects of boredom and forced stop on the body are important: for the brave who want to be a guinea pig, often even with their heads tilted down, there are thousands of dollars of expected compensation , based on the duration of the experiments (in the photo: a human centrifuge that should compensate for the risks of inactivity on blood circulation).
Australia fined NASA for polluting its territory. In 1979 the Skylab, the first space station in the United States, ended its life by falling into the atmosphere, much further east than expected. It crashed southeast of Perth, fortunately without injuring anyone. But NASA was fined by Esperance County – the one hit by the debris – for dirtying its territory. The fine was $ 400, and was only recently paid.
Cape Canaveral was chosen for a specific reason. The Kennedy Space Center, in Florida, is located near the equator in order to take full advantage of the thrust of the Earth’s rotation during launches. Linear velocity, that is, the distance traveled by a point in a unit of time, is in fact maximum at the equator. In addition, the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean guarantees a large uninhabited area available in the event of accidents and relapses of fragments on the ground.
