FAST FACTS: Shuttle Fleet Mission Capacity
FAST FACT: NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet was built to last 400 missions. The agency had expected to log those flights in only 10 years.
FAST FACT: NASA’s Space Shuttle fleet was built to last 400 missions. The agency had expected to log those flights in only 10 years.
(Above) Rick Guidice’s The Surface of Venus.
FACT: The temperature of the the planet’s surface is about 870 degrees F (465 degrees C), higher than that of any other planet and hotter than most ovens.
FACT: On the Apollo J-missions the Lunar Module engine nozzle only had 30 centimeters of clearance from the ground.
Mars Wind speeds: 2-7 m/s (summer), 5-10 m/s (fall), 17-30 m/s (during a dust storm)
Ion propulsion has long been a staple of science fiction novels, but in recent years it has been successfully tested on a number of unmanned spacecraft, most notably NASA’s Deep Space 1. Launched in 1998, Deep Space 1 rendezvoused with a distant asteroid and then with a comet, proving that ion propulsion could be used for interplanetary travel.
Solar electric propulsion takes advantage of magnetism and electricity to push a ship through space. Electricity, generated by the ship’s solar panels, gives a positive electrical charge to atoms inside the chamber. They are pulled by magnetism towards the back of the ship and then pushed by magnetic repulsion out of the ship. (This is like what happens when you hold the same pole of two different magnets close to each other. They repel each other.) This steady stream of atoms going out of the spacecraft gives it the thrust it needs to go forward through space.
A small colony of common bacteria Streptococcus Mitis stowed away for nearly three years aboard Surveyor 3, an unmanned spacecraft that landed on the moon in 1967. The crew of Apollo 12 recovered the organisms and brought them back to Earth under sterile conditions.
This unplanned experiment proved that certain microorganisms can survive years of radiation exposure, the vacuum of space and deep-freeze, without any nutrient, water or energy source.
The use of the Extended Duration Orbiter (EDO) pallet extends the space shuttle’s stay time onorbit to 16 days plus two weather days.
The EDO pallet holds a set of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen tanks to provide additional fuel for the orbiter’s electrical power generation system, a regenerating system for removing carbon dioxide from the crew cabin atmosphere, two additional nitrogen tanks for cabin air, and an improved waste collection system.
FAST FACTS: The total budget for Skylab was approximately $2,147,100,000.
Skylab: America’s first Space Station
Skylab was a modified Saturn 4B stage suitable for long duration manned habitation in orbit. It contained provisions and crew quarters necessary to support three-person crews for periods of up to 84 days each. All parts were also capable of unmanned, in-orbit storage, reactivation, and reuse.
Skylab itself was launched on May 14, 1973. It was first manned during the period May 25 to June 22, 1973, by the crew of the SL-2 mission (73-032A). Next, it was manned during the period July 28 to September 25, 1973, by the crew of the SL-3 mission (73-050A). The final manned period was from November 16, 1973, to February 8, 1974, when it was manned by the crew from the SL-4 mission (73-090A).
FACT: The power required to operate the Flux Capacitor in the DeLorean time machine is 1/10 that of a Space Shuttle at launch.
THE MATH BEHIND THE FACT: The power required to operate the flux capacitor is 1.21 GW gigawatts according to Dr. Emmett Brown in the film Back to the Future.
Unit conversion:
1.21GW (gigawatts)
1.21GW x 109W (watts)
Comparisons as power:
~~ ( 0.1 ~~ 1/10 ) x power of space shuttle at launch (~~ 1.2x10^10 W )
(Above) Art concept of a manned maneuvering unit with stars in background. This viewgraph resembles an insignia.
FAST FACTS: MMU
The Manned Maneuvering Unit (MMU) is a propulsion backpack which was used by NASA astronauts on three space shuttle missions in 1984. The MMU allowed the astronauts to perform untethered EVA spacewalks at a distance from the shuttle. The MMU was used in practice to retrieve a pair of faulty communications satellites, Westar VI and Palapa B2. Following the third mission the unit was retired from use.