40 Amazing Facts About NASA’s Space Programs and Missions

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26Gregory Nemitz

Gregory Nemitz

A man called Gregory Nemitz claimed ownership of an asteroid (433 Eros) months before NASA landed a probe in it. He then proceeded to issue NASA a $20 parking ticket for landing there.


27. Alligators have been a long-running problem for NASA, including climbing over their fences and entering buildings overnight.


28. NASA has developed a technology called FINDER used to detect breathing or heartbeats through up to 30 feet of rubble, or 20 feet of solid concrete, and it was used to save lives during the 2015 Nepal earthquakes.


29. When Lodewijk van den Berg designed an experiment for the Space Shuttle, NASA asked for a list of 8 people who could fly in orbit to run it. Adding his own name to finish the list, to van den Ber's amazement he became the first Dutch spaceman despite his age (53) and physical condition.


30. An engineer (Clayton Anderson) at NASA spent 15 years trying to become an astronaut, being rejected 14 times before finally being selected in 1998.


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31Speedo swimsuit

Speedo swimsuit

In 2008 Speedo, in collaboration with NASA, released a swimsuit so drag-resistant that it was banned from use in swimming competitions for giving swimmers using it too much of an advantage.


32. NASA asked Buzz Aldrin to refrain from quoting the Bible on the moon.


33. In 1962, a programmer omitted a single hyphen in the code for the Mariner I rocket, causing it to explode shortly after take off. This typo cost NASA the equivalent of $630 million today.


34. The TLC network (Home of Honey Boo Boo, The Duggars, Little People, Sarah Palin's Alaska, etc) was originally created by NASA and the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to provide "real education through the medium of television".


35. Neil Armstrong's NASA application was a week late. If it weren't for his friend, Dick Day, secretly slipping it into the pile, he would have been rejected.


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36Antarctica

Antarctica

Some people still believe that the earth is flat, and that earth is a disc encased by Antarctica and a 150-foot wall of ice at the edge, guarded by NASA employed security guards.


37. The body of an astronaut (Laurel Clark) killed in the Columbia disaster was found to have been looted and her wedding ring stolen. Plans by Texas Rangers and her widower to find the thief by informing the public were allegedly suppressed because ", it would not be good publicity for NASA."


38. NASA have their own special agents who are armed, have arrest authority and can execute search warrants.


39. NASA had an accident while testing spacesuits for the Apollo moon missions, and caught it on camera. The test subject (Jim Leblanc) was accidentally depressurized while in a vacuum chamber, and lost consciousness and experienced his own spit boiling. The team took nearly a minute to save him from the chamber.


40. NASA conducted a nap study on their pilots. They found that naps provided 34% increase in pilot performance and 100% increase in physiological alertness.

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