15 Interesting Facts About NASA

The acronym “NASA” stands for National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The organization has pioneered many missions to space. They even managed to get humans on the moon with a computer as powerful as your modern toaster. To many, NASA seems to be an invincible force, and in many respects that are, but at the end of the day they are no different than any other organization. I recently came across this article, which outlines some interesting facts about NASA that you might not know. Here are some of many favorite facts about the NASA.

1) NASA has a goal to get humans on Mars at some point in the 2030s.

2) Space Shuttle electronics were so outdated that nobody made them anymore. Therefore, NASA had to resort to buying spare parts on websites like eBay.

3) According to NASA estimates, the value of minerals in the asteroid belt amounts to nearly $100 billion for every human on the planet.

4) To be officially considered an astronaut by NASA you must travel at least 50 miles above Earth’s surface.

5) Cape Canaveral, Florida was chosen as a launch site for spaceships because of its proximity to the equator. This location gives it more linear velocity than any other location in the United States.

6) According to polls, most Americans believe that NASA funding accounts for roughly 20% of the national budget. However, NASA actually receives only $0.005 cents of every dollar.

7) The area code for Kennedy Space Center, and its surrounding regions, is 321. The number imitates the countdown before liftoff.

8) The toaster in your kitchen has a more powerful computer than the one used by NASA to send astronauts to the moon. It only had 64Kbyte of memory and operated at 0.043MHz!

9) Lonnie Johnson, the man who invented the Super Soaker was a NASA scientist. Johnson also helped develop the Stealth Bomber.

10) NASA shows the movie Armageddon as part of its staff training. Trainees are then asked to identify as many scientific inaccuracies as they can.

11) NASA will send you a text message whenever the International Space Station passes over your location.

12) Feeling lazy? NASA will actually pay you to lay in bed for months at a time so they can study the effects of prolonged weightlessness.

13) Bill Nye the Science Guy originally wanted to be an astronaut, but NASA kept rejecting him.

14) In 2006, NASA admitted that they had accidentally recorded over the original tapes of the moon landing. Thankfully, NASA was not the only group recording. Copies found at CBS and Johnson Space Center are currently being restored.

15) NASA was sued by three men from Yemen for trespassing on Mars. The men claimed that they had inherited the planet from their ancestors thousands of years ago.

For more facts about NASA, feel free to check out this article or the video below.