Sometimes you stumble across an old gem in the lost files and piles of forgotten stuff. Space base!
Space Base!
Tag: NASA
News Release: Round Trip
On further reflection, it was probably contamination after the return to Earth, but we still like the idea of mouth bacteria being just fine with two and half years on the Moon.
Brush your teeth, kids.
News Release: Oldest Moon Rock
Size descriptions for popular media: either described in terms of fruit or of sporting goods.
Ballpark identification of a rock at 4.6 billion years old – approximately the age of the solar system – is pretty darn cool. Even if there’s nothing lemony about it.
News Release: Parasol-Popping
Parachutes, air bags, sky cranes: there are many options for attempting to (safely) land a probe on Mars, and some of them have even worked! Unclear at this time what became of this particular parasol plan.
Popping: interesting word choice for something that big, something intended to do the opposite of crashings and smashings.
As strange as this interplanetary toadstool looks, one can only hope it worked. Or looked spectacular when it didn’t.
News Release: Space Potato
“Potato” isn’t a shape, it’s a lack of shape.
News Release: Space Footwear
This raises a major question: do astronauts typically wear shoes? Or do they float about in socks? Or those pajamas with the feet? We understand that every gram counts when launching things into space, so what sort of footwear makes the cut?
The Converse look is a fine one, of course. And do we spy both laces and zip-up sides?
Photo: Space Frogs
Here they are, the orbiting frogs. Not being a frog, it’s hard to comment with confidence on how they feel, but one can assume they’d all rather be elsewhere, doing ordinary frog things.
News Release: Space Frogs
We’re all relieved to hear that. While the American bullfrog enjoys a large natural range throughout eastern North America, and are celebrated jumpers, they are not typically encountered at heights above the earth that one would consider “in orbit.”
Whatever it’s like to think like a frog, we can safely assume that the rocket launch and orbital microgravity experiences were weird by any frog standards.
News Release: Balloon Survival
Science: if we can learn something from sending a 1,200 lb. payload over Saskatchewan via (a very large) balloon, by golly we’re going to try.
News Release: Buddy System
We’re not arguing here: contingency plans in a potentially dangerous situation are essential. One can reasonably assume that any and all tasks undertaken by astronauts while naut-ing in the astro are, if not inherently dangerous, at least dangerous-adjacent. And, as that time Tom Hanks almost died in space taught us, you can’t call 911 from space and expect them to do anything about it.
In case you were curious: the first 911 call was in Haleyville, Alabama in February, 1968. The Apollo 13 mission went sideways in April, 1970. Presumably any connection between the two would have to have been routed through CAPCOM anyway.