Amazing Space Facts

1.On June 4, 1974 NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) began construction of the very first orbiter of the new Space Shuttle Program. The orbiter carried the designation OV-101 but was later planned to be named constitution.

However, after NASA received hundreds of thousands of letters from avid fans of the TV show STAR TREK requesting the space shuttle to be named Enterprise. NASA officials decided to seek the president’s approval for the name change. Declassified White House documents reveal that president Gerald Ford approved the renaming of the Space Shuttle for this exact reason.

Prior to the 1960s the title Integrated Launch and Reentry Vehicle, or ILRV, was used to describe a vehicle for traveling between a planet’s surface and space. However, soon after the shuttle craft was introduced in STAR TREK, NASA officials began using the term Space Shuttle to describe such a vehicle.

2.Inside the Eagle Nebula, some 7000 ly from Earth, there’s a beautiful region known as the pillars of creation. But astronomers believe that the formation has already been destroyed after a nearby star went supernova some 9000 years ago. So the light from the supernova has already reached the Earth but as the shock-wave is much slower than the speed of light it only reached and destroyed the pillars of creation 6000 years ago. And as the nebula is 7000 ly away, it will be another millennium until the light from the formations destruction reaches the Earth.

3. In November of 1969, the crew of Apollo 12 safely landed on the Moon and soon experienced what it was like to walk around on the lunar surface. As the two astronauts conducted their extra vehicular activities they followed the instructions printed on the flip book attached to the wrist of the spacesuit. Take some measurements, set up equipment, collect some rocks, playboy magazine……

This is actually what Pete Conard and Alan Bean saw on their first EVA on the moon. They both explained in a 1994 interview that: “It was about two and half hours into the EVA, I flipped the page over and there she was’.”I hopped over to where Pete was and showed him mine, and he showed me his.”

They revealed that the photos had been added as a joke by the backup crew without anyone’s knowledge. One of the models featured in the flip book is even visible in a photo released by NASA to the public.

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Viman Vidhya