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32 Far-Out Facts About Space and NASA

If you believe outer space is real, that is

32 Far-Out Facts About Space and NASA

July 20, 2024

NASA is weirder about doin’ it than a middle school substitute health teacher.

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RADIATION HITS YOUR RETINAS IN SPACE. THAT'S EVEN WHEN YOU CLOSE YOUR EYES. This tricks your brain into thinking you're seeing lights, which goes from inconvenient to inescapable. The constant radiation penetration also structurally damages the delicate tissues in your eyes, which may well lead to permanently messed-up sight. CRACKED.COM — Source

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YOUR HEART WEAKENS IN SPACE. OVHD TIPO YOUR ONL Y REMEDY? CONSTANT EXERCISE. You have to exercise a good 2.5 hours a day, every day, as long as you're out there. You'll spend those hours strapped into one of the three exercise contraptions available, forever grinding in a tiny room that's filled with cables and presumably smells like jock straps. CRACKED.COM — Source

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SPACE RUINS YOUR ABILITY TO TASTE. Протертый - Crackars THE M 50 ml MILK 5-00 - Кремиры нем 2/28/2007 with A SPREAD CHEESE CHEES SPREA - adidas Our 1/31/2004 DWCM - View C Cheddar Cheese Spread 120 I ا Candy Coalled Peanuts Kread Batore Openeng 9/20/2003 E Писта www. - - Aparal 2088 zo 5'1 A для Размигчать pepci открытеем Seat State Exp AGUNT بوب 4127303142 YOUR NOSE IS CONSTANTLY STUFFED. The only cure is the burning sensation of spicy food. Stuff like Tabasco sauce is prized aboard the International Space Station. Astronaut Peggy Whitson once jokingly threatened to bar entry from — Source

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LOW GRAVITY GIVES YOU SPACE DIABETES. 10 ml NovoRapid Nordisk 100 j.ml Injekeni roztok HM Insulinum aspartum 100 m.j/ml Subkutanni, intravenozni podáni kci. THE WAY YOU HANDLE INSULIN GOES НА YWIRE. Even conventional diabetes treatments fall short. We do see some possible relief from a heart-friendly chemical called resveratrol, found in red wine. Unfortunately, though, NASA currently objects to astronauts drinking wine all day, for some reason. CRACKED.COM — Source

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THIS RUSSIAN SOYUZ IS HOW WE REACH THE ISS. СОЮЗ IT WAS DESIGNED IN 1962. Yeah, space tech can be ancient. The Soyuz remained unchanged for decades. Its computer went digital only in 2010, and it uses buttons an operator must push with a stick. NASA are only now switching to an alternative: the Crew Dragon, made by SpaceX. CRACKED.COM — Source

27

SHUTTLES OF COURSE ALLOW NO BABIES. BUT LONG-TERM, HOW WOULD BABIES WORK? If we plan to travel long-term and also continue as a species, babies will be kind of a necessity. You can't make babies exercise the way adults do. How space radiation and other fun elements of interplanetary travel will mess with them is anyone's guess. CRACKED.COM — Source

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STEERING WHILE IN ORBIT IS CRAZY HARD. ACCELERATE? THAT RAISES YOUR ORBIT. To lower your orbit, you now need negative force from your rockets. But since you're getting closer to Earth, and gravity's growing, your kinetic energy actually increases, so you're likely to accelerate again. Confused? You should be. CRACKED.COM — Source

25

SPINAL DISKS CUSHION YOU AGAINST GRAVITY. IN SPACE, THESE BECOME USELESS. So your vertebrae drift and extend your spine. The good news: you get taller. The bad news: chronic back pain as a very nerve-dense part of your body suddenly stretches like an accordion. Oh, and the nerves themselves are also in danger of getting damaged. CRACKED.COM — Source

24

LET'S SAY SEX WERE ALLOWED IN SPACE. IT COULD STILL BE IMPOSSIBLE. Without gravity, blood moves to your upper body, messing with arousal for both men and women. Plus, flailing about naked and unrestrained would be very dangerous. You'd probably need special sex suits or to be bound to your partner with elastic. CRACKED.COM — Source

23

IN MOVIES, SHIPS TOUR COLORFUL NEBULAE. BUT SPACE IS ALMOST ENTIREL Y EMPTY. You'll generally be looking out at nothing. Even if you stare right at one of the few sights, it'll never look like the cool colorful photos from the Hubble telescope. NASA adds those colors to depict types of atoms detected by different filters. CRACKED.COM — Source

22

ROMANCE IS FORBIDDEN AMONG ASTRONAUTS. NASA SAYS COUPLES CAN'T SHARE A SHIP. The one exception was when the couple married right before launch, and it was too late to change plans. NASA knows the true power of love is its ability to make even brilliant people turn crazy. That simply can't be allowed to happen on a starship. CRACKED.COM — Source

21

BONES AND MUSCLES ATROPHY IN SPACE. РОСКОК RETURNING TO EARTH IS A HUGE ADJUSTMENT. You might be missing 8 percent of the bone across your hips, and that's even with all the exercise. You also have to readjust mentally. You'll try to float a pen or a water bottle over to someone and watch it clunk to the ground, because you've forgotten about gravity. CRACKED.COM — Source

20

ENGINE DIES ON EARTH? FRICTION STOPS YOU. IN SPACE? YOU KEEP MOVING, HELPLESS. Banking on a rescue? But any ship chasing you must first match your speed, and then go even faster to catch up. And don't count on sci-fi style escape pods. They'd have to be functioning space shuttles of their own and will probably never be practical to include. CRACKED.COM — Source

19

MEN MUST PEE USING A FUNNEL. WOMEN MUST PEE USING A CUP. Pee's converted into drinking water, because up there, every drop of liquid counts. The real trick is knowing when you need to go. When there's no gravity to push waste downward through you, your body becomes unreliable at giving you its regular cues. CRACKED.COM — Source

18

EVERY SPARE INCH IS USED FOR STORAGE. FUEL, FOOD, PARTS, MED SUPPLIES... Those are the systems whose sharp corners you will continually be banging against every time you make a sudden movement. Designers can't throw in extra head room just to make you comfortable. Every extra bit of ship is going to cost somebody millions. CRACKED.COM — Source

17

IN SPACE, GERMS CHANGE WEIRDL Y. YOUR IMMUNE SYSTEM, MEANWHILE, CRUMBLES. Meds and vaccines also lose potency in space. Oh, you didn't want to go through quarantine? Congratulations! You're now sitting in the space toilet of your luxurious vessel, your weakened body torn apart by a ravenous strand of mutant salmonella. CRACKED.COM — Source

16

SPACE JETPACKS DON'T EXIST. THE CLOSEST THING WAS SCRAPPED. The one in Gravity is based on the Manned Maneuvering Unit, which dates back to 1984. Its tiny compressed nitrogen thrusters couldn't move you at anything beyond a crawl. Besides, shuttles can just park next to you, so NASA dropped the MMU. CRACKED.COM — Source

15

SPACE DOES HAVE THE INTERNET. BUT IT'S SUPER SLOW. The issue is distance. While the ISS itself is only around 250 miles away, signals must bounce through a network of satellites, traversing 22,000 miles. And of course, as we move into deeper space, accessing the net will become vastly harder. CRACKED.COM — Source

14

AN UNANTICIPATED THREAT SHOOK NASA IN THE 1960s. SPACE FARTS. Farts don't really go away in zero-G because there's no convection. Floating bubbles of turd-gas just hover like space mines. That's your future: Hordes of people spewing anal gases until the air turns brown. The inevitable purging fire will come as sweet relief. CRACKED.COM — Source

13

INTERSTELLAR DISTANCES ARE HUGE. EVEN AT LIGHT SPEED, TRIPS'LL TAKE YEARS. To everyone on Earth, your time will slow down the faster you go. So that decade-long round trip from your perspective could easily mean a lot more time will pass on Earth. You wouldn't just return in the future; you'd return in the distant future. CRACKED.COM — Source

12

CRACKED.COM 2/3 of NASA astronauts were Boy/Girl Scouts As of 2011 (which is, okay, pretty outdated), there were 312 people selected to be astronauts, with at least 207 identifying as a Boy or Girl Scout. 11 out of the 12 people to walk on the moon were. — Source

11

CRACKED.COM NASA only uses 15 digits of П =3.141592653 7932384626 For the highest accuracy calculations, NASA only needs to use 3.141 59265358979. Even when doing calculations for the circumference of a circle with a radius of 46 billion light years (the entire visible universe) to an accuracy equal to the diameter of the simplest atom, you would only need 39 or 40 decimal places — Source

10

CRACKED.COM NASA astronaut Frank Culbertson was the only American not on Earth during 9/11 Не watched the Twin Towers collapse from space. — Source

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CRACKED.COM Jan Davis and Mark Lee were the first (and last) married couple to go to space together They didn't reveal their marriage until it was too close to their mission to train new astronauts, inspiring NASA to make their informal policy of not putting married couples on the same flight a written rule. — Source

8

CRACKED.COM Astronaut ice cream has never been to space Although created with NASA funding, the freeze-dried ice cream has never made it on a spaceship ... it's too crumbly to be practical. — Source

7

CRACKED.COM NASA dumps its trash in the Pacific Ocean Point Nemo (the most remote oceanic area, located between New Zealand and South America) is a spacecraft cemetery for multiple countries. — Source

6

CRACKED.COM NASA is confused as to what just crashed into the Moon The 'mystery rocket body' left an equally mysterious double crater on the Moon's surface on March 4, 2022. — Source

5

CRACKED.COM Guy Bluford was the first Black American astronaut in space MF43E MF43G In 1983, he was a crew member of the Orbiter Challenger. The first person of African descent in space was Cuban cosmonaut Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez in 1980. — Source

4

CRACKED.COM Astronauts may experience the overview effect This phenomenon refers to the powerful shift in perspective that happens when you view the Earth from space, causing a dramatic shift in priorities. — Source

3

CRACKED.COM DreamWorks hired nearly a dozen former NASA employees DreamWorks has a team of 120 people members with master's and doctoral degrees to create technology within the animation industry. — Source

2

CRACKED.COM Buzz Aldrin almost didn't go to the moon because of his personality Aldrin was said to have a personality that grated on several of the other astronauts so Armstrong was offered the chance to replace him with Jim Lovell, but Armstrong refused because he believed Lovell deserved his own mission to command. — Source

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