26Ratchet Wrench
Thanks to 3D printing, NASA can send plans for new tools and equipment to the Space Station over email. Instead of waiting months for new gear, Astronauts can now print new gear in hours.
27. The ridiculous notion that NASA astronauts carry suicide pills for use in case they are marooned in outer space is untrue. Exposure to outer space results in a much faster and smoother demise compared to a suicide pill.
28. In 1969, as requested by Richard Nixon, NASA made 250 display plaques for 135 nations, 50 States in the USA, and the United Nations. Flags from all the countries and states were flown onboard Apollo 11 to the moon and back, which were then gifted to each respective state and nation along with fragments of a lunar sample.
29. Astronauts of Project Mercury, the first human spaceflight program of the United States, flew with a rectal thermometer in them, to record their body temperature during the mission. For the last six manned flights, however, rectal thermometers were replaced with oral thermometers.
30. When the replacement crew for Skylab entered the empty space station, they found that it wasn't empty at all. There were 3 figures inside. Upon further inspection, the replacement crew found out that these were dummies placed in flight suits by the previous Skylab crew before they left.
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31John Grunsfeld
American astronaut John Grunsfeld once called into NPR's Car Talk posing as a stumped caller, while he was in orbit aboard Space Shuttle Endeavor. He asked the host why his government vehicle was shaking violently for a couple of minutes before the engine died.
32. NASA's first Space Shuttle was to be named "Constitution", but after a major letter-writing campaign by Star Trek fans, its name was affectionately changed to "Enterprise."
33. Astronauts from the Gemini and Apollo missions used a condom-like device to extract urine. Its sizes were labeled small, medium, and large. When astronauts only took the ones labeled "large," NASA engineers then started labeling them "large," "gigantic," and "humongous."
34. Back in 2006, NASA's Earth observation satellites uncovered Mayan ruins that had become overgrown by jungle and weren't visible.
35. On December 16, 1965, astronauts Wally Schirra and Tom Stafford became the first people to perform music in space when they played Jingle Bells on harmonica and bells that they had smuggled onto the Gemini VI.
36Gemini 9A mission
Gemini 9 astronauts had a spacewalk planned as part of their mission and in the worst-case scenario, if the astronaut couldn't get back in, NASA planned to attempt re-entry of the vehicle with the astronaut still tethered outside, which would have most likely killed both astronauts. The crew had clear instructions to not cut loose the astronaut stuck outside. The astronaut did have lots of trouble with the spacewalk but did manage to make his way back inside safely.
37. The first spacewalk was performed by astronaut Edward Higgins White during Gemini 4 mission and during the spacewalk, he lost a thermal glove. It thus became one of the first pieces of space debris, as it stayed in orbit at over 28,000kph for a month.
38. For the Gemini 5 and 7 missions, NASA devised an experiment to test astronaut vision acuity by flattening large areas of land into patterns at a test site and had the astronauts tell ground control what they saw. They required this data to predict the crew's naked-eye visual capability to identify objects on the earth's surface in daylight.
39. In the early days of the Space Shuttle program, NASA aimed for 60 launches a year. By the end, they averaged only 6 launches per year.
40. NASA's Project Gemini space program is pronounced to rhyme with "knee"(Jeh-mih-nee) and not "eye", like the constellation.
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RE: Fact #32 (Enterprise) – No, sorry…that’s wrong.
The Space Shuttle Enterprise was originally going to be named Columbia.
Please correct this.
Thank you.