One of the things that Apollo mission did was deposit a cockroach on the moon. During their outward flight, the astronauts noticed a cockroach in their spaceship, but when they returned, the craft was thoroughly inspected by NASA technicians and no trace of it was found. The only conclusion is that it crept out and was left behind.
• A total of 382 kg of rock samples were returned to the Earth by the Apollo and Luna programs.
• The first living creatures that the United States ever sent into space were two mice, named Benjy and Laska, in 1958. The first animal to go into space was a dog, sent up by the Russians.
• Astronauts are not allowed to eat beans before they go into space because passing wind in a spacesuit damages them.
• The liquid hydrogen in the Space Shuttle main engine is -423 degrees Fahrenheit (-253 degrees Centigrade), the second coldest liquid on Earth, and when burned with liquid oxygen, the temperature in the engine's combustion chamber reaches +6,000 degrees F. (+3,316 degrees C.)
• Each of the Space Shuttle's solid rocket boosters burns 5 tons of propellant per second.
• Comets' tails point away from the Sun at all times. Thus, when a comet is moving away from the Sun, its tail is actually leading. Comet tails are caused by dust and gas being lost from the comet and then pushed away from the Sun by the solar wind (charged particles moving out from the Sun) and by radiation pressure from the Sun.
• An Armageddon meteor came within 280,000 miles of the Earth on May 21, 1996. This could have been devastating to life on Earth. Fortunately for us, and Bruce Willis, it missed!
• Even before the Sun turns into a red giant its increased output will fry the Earth, and by the time it turns into a red giant the Earth will be a parched ball of bleached rock.
• Don't Panic! The Sun has enough energy to burn yet another 5 billion years.
The final Curious © phrase:
“Space flights are merely an escape, a fleeing away from oneself, because it is easier to go to Mars or to the moon than it is to penetrate one's own being”
(Carl Gustav Jung)
