Apollo 12 Astronauts Train For The Moon, September 1969.

Crazy Facts About the #YearInSpace

Astronaut Scott Kelly and Russian cosmonaut Mikhail Kornienko returned from their One-Year Mission on March 1. When you spend a year doing anything, you’re bound to accumulate some crazy stats. Here are a few:

During their year in space, Kelly and Kornienko traveled over 143 million miles, conducting research to prepare us for our journey to Mars, which will be about 140,000,000 miles from Earth.

The International Space Station travels at a speed of 5 miles per second and orbits the Earth every 90 minutes.

These visiting vehicles brought food, supplies, experiments and more crew members to the space station.

Since the space station is orbiting the Earth at 17,500 miles per hour, the crew onboard sees 16 sunrises and sunsets each day.

Water is a precious and limited resource in space, so crew members recycle it whenever possible. That includes recycling their own urine.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

What You Didn’t Know About Scott Kelly and Living in Space (Floating Urine is Involved)

First Ever NASA Reddit AMA from Space Recap

NASA astronaut Scott Kelly hosted a Reddit Ask Me Anything on Jan. 23 where people, well, asked him anything.

Kelly answered a range of questions from whether the crew members play space pranks on one another (“Occasionally…” Kelly said without elaboration.) to whether Kelly’s recovery plan will be different than normal (“I think my rehab plan is the same as if I were here for 6 months, but I’m not positive.”).

To start off, here are a few quick facts we learned about Kelly during the AMA:

The advice he would’ve given himself before going into space on day 1 would be to pack lighter.

His favorite David Bowie song is “Modern Love,” and his favorite non-space related movie is “The Godfather." 

He uses a Nikon D4 when taking pictures (camera settings and lenses vary).

He thought it was cool to watch the movie "Gravity” while he was on the space station, because that’s where the movie took place.

Once he lands, Kelly will miss the challenge of being aboard the space station the most.

Here are a few fun questions that astronaut Scott Kelly answered:

What’s the creepiest thing you’ve encountered while on the job?

Could a rogue spaceship sneak up on the space station?

We finally got an answer for one thing so many of you have been curious about…why does Scott Kelly always fold his arms?

When astronauts go up to space, they experience something very few others have and see Earth from a very unique perspective. What’s one thing Kelly will do differently once he returns home?

Kelly also told one user something unusual about being in space that people normally don’t think about: feet calluses.

Another user wanted to know what the largest societal misconception about space/space travel is. According to Kelly, it has nothing to do with science.

To read the entire Reddit AMA with Kelly, visit his IAmA thread.

Kelly’s #YearInSpace ends Mar. 2. Follow him until the end of the journey (and beyond) on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Saturn Wip // Michael MacRae

Infographic about Planet 9, the required planet to explain the trajectory of six of the most distand known Kuiper Belt Objects.

Source: http://imgur.com/S5faizX

The European Space Agency’s Sentinel-3 satellite, launched this week, is seen crossing the sky not long after launch with a jettisoned rocket stage right behind it, all amidst the beautiful northern lights display in northern Finland.

Breathtaking.

I Got Humans

I adore Elon Musk so much! People like him are the future of our civilization :)

Earthset from the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter : On the Moon, the Earth never rises or sets. If you were to sit on the surface of the Moon, you would see the Earth just hang in the sky. This is because the Moon always keeps the same side toward the Earth. Curiously, the featured image does picture the Earth setting over a lunar edge. This was possible because the image was taken from a spacecraft orbiting the Moon - specifically the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter . In fact, LRO orbits the Moon so fast that, from the spacecraft, the Earth appears to set anew about every two hours. The featured image captured one such Earthset about three months ago. By contrast, from the surface of the Earth, the Moon sets about once a day with the primary cause being the rotation of the Earth. LRO was launched in 2009 and, while creating a detailed three dimensional map of the Moons surface, is also surveying the Moon for water and possible good landing spots for future astronauts. via NASA

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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1

Today is the anniversary of Apollo 1' accident. January 27, 1967 three astronauts gave their lifes for development of space travel. Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White II, and Robert B. Chaffee - the bravest men in the world. Thank you for your sacrifice. Rest in peace, Guys!

Almost a month ago, the spaceflight company Blue Origin sent a rocket up to the edge of space and then guided it gracefully back down to earth, intact. It was a historic first.

But Blue Origin’s major competitor, SpaceX, was quick to point out that the rocket wasn’t going fast enough (or sideways enough) to place a satellite into orbit - just 4,600 kph (~2,860 mph). It went straight up, and then straight down.

Now, SpaceX has managed to put 11 satellites in orbit with a “reusable” rocket. Their rocket didn’t just go up and down - it reached a horizontal velocity of 6,000 kph (3,600 mph) before returning to earth. If SpaceX is able to refurbish the rocket and use it in another launch, they’ll have figured out a way to dramatically reduce the cost of spaceflight.

Here’s the full webcast. And here’s the full story.

Video credit: SpaceX