We Judge Ourselves By What We Feel Capable Of Doing, While Others Judge Us By What We Have Already Done.

You’ve Heard “Houston, we’ve had a problem,” But Do You Know The Mission It’s From?

It’s the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 13 mission! NASA’s “successful failure,”Apollo 13 was to be the third lunar landing attempt, but the mission was aborted mid-flight after the rupture of a service module oxygen tank. The crew never landed on the moon, but due to the dedication and ingenuity of Mission Control, made it back to Earth safely. We’ve put some of the most important numbers of the Apollo 13 mission in perspective. Check it out!

Listen to the mission in real time, HERE. 

Follow NASA History on Twitter and Facebook for more interesting information about aerospace history!

Check out the stats of all the Apollo Missions in the free e-book Apollo by the Numbers, HERE.

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How was it possible for the world to be so beautiful and so cruel at the same time?

Gillian Rubinstein (via quotemadness)

Earth Facts that Live Rent-Free in Our Heads

Earth is a big weird planet. With so much going on, it’s easy to forget some of the many, many processes happening here. But at the same time, some stuff is so unexpected and just plain strange that it’s impossible to forget. We asked around and found out lots of people here at NASA have this problem.

Here are some facts about Earth that live rent free in our heads:

Earth has a solid inner core that is almost as hot as the surface of the Sun. Earth’s core gets as high as 9,800 degrees Fahrenheit, while the surface of the Sun is about 10,000 degrees Fahrenheit.

Dust from the Sahara fertilizes the Amazon rainforest. 27.7 million tons blow all the way across the Atlantic Ocean to the rainforest each year, where it brings phosphorus – a nutrient plants need to grow.

Ice in Antarctica looks solid and still, but it’s actually flowing – in some places it flows so fast that scientific instruments can move as much as a kilometer (more than half a mile!) a year.

Speaking of Antarctica: Ice shelves (the floating part of ice sheets) can be as big as Texas. Because they float, they rise and fall with the tide. So floating ice as big as Texas, attached to the Antarctic Ice Sheet, can rise and fall up to ~26 feet!

Melting ice on land makes its way to the ocean. As polar glaciers melt, the water sloshes to the equator, and which can actually slow the spin of Earth.

Even though it looks it, the ocean isn’t level. The surface has peaks and valleys and varies due to changes in height of the land below, winds, temperature, saltiness, atmospheric pressure, ocean circulation, and more.

Earth isn’t the only mind-blowing place out there. From here, we look out into the rest of the universe, full of weird planets and galaxies that surprise us.

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The Artemis Story: Where We Are Now and Where We’re Going

Using a sustainable architecture and sophisticated hardware unlike any other, the first woman and the next man will set foot on the surface of the Moon by 2024. Artemis I, the first mission of our powerful Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft, is an important step in reaching that goal.

As we close out 2019 and look forward to 2020, here’s where we stand in the Artemis story — and what to expect in 2020. 

Cranking Up The Heat on Orion

The Artemis I Orion spacecraft arrived at our Plum Brook Station in Sandusky, Ohio, on Tuesday, Nov. 26 for in-space environmental testing in preparation for Artemis I.

This four-month test campaign will subject the spacecraft, consisting of its crew module and European-built service module, to the vacuum, extreme temperatures (ranging from -250° to 300° F) and electromagnetic environment it will experience during the three-week journey around the Moon and back. The goal of testing is to confirm the spacecraft’s components and systems work properly under in-space conditions, while gathering data to ensure the spacecraft is fit for all subsequent Artemis missions to the Moon and beyond. This is the final critical step before the spacecraft is ready to be joined with the Space Launch System rocket for this first test flight in 2020!

Bringing Everyone Together

On Dec. 9, we welcomed members of the public to our Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans for #Artemis Day and to get an up-close look at the hardware that will help power our Artemis missions. The 43-acre facility has more than enough room for guests and the Artemis I, II, and III rocket hardware! NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine formally unveiled the fully assembled core stage of our SLS rocket for the first Artemis mission to the Moon, then guests toured of the facility to see flight hardware for Artemis II and III. The full-day event — complete with two panel discussions and an exhibit hall — marked a milestone moment as we prepare for an exciting next phase in 2020.

Rolling On and Moving Out

Once engineers and technicians at Michoud complete functional testing on the Artemis I core stage, it will be rolled out of the Michoud factory and loaded onto our Pegasus barge for a very special delivery indeed. About this time last year, our Pegasus barge crew was delivering a test version of the liquid hydrogen tank from Michoud to NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville for structural testing. This season, the Pegasus team will be transporting a much larger piece of hardware — the entire core stage — on a slightly shorter journey to the agency’s nearby Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Mississippi.

Special Delivery

Why Stennis, you ask? The giant core stage will be locked and loaded into the B2 Test Stand there for the landmark Green Run test series. During the test series, the entire stage, including its extensive avionics and flight software systems, will be tested in full. The series will culminate with a hot fire of all four RS-25 engines and will certify the complex stage “go for launch.” The next time the core stage and its four engines fire as one will be on the launchpad at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Already Working on Artemis II

As Orion and SLS make progress toward the pad for Artemis I, employees at NASA centers and large and small companies across America are hard at work assembling and manufacturing flight hardware for Artemis II and beyond.  The second mission of SLS and Orion will be a test flight with astronauts aboard that will go around the Moon before returning home. Our work today will pave the way for a new generation of moonwalkers and Artemis explorers.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com.

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