- NASA celebrates 50 years of space exploration
- NEWS.com.au answers the big questions
- Pictures: Astronauts and outer space
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) turns 50 today, and to celebrate we've found out the answer to the most important question in the cosmos: how do you go to the toilet in zero gravity?
NASA is responsible for civilian and military aerospace research, and the US space program.
According to The Space Review, for every $US1 the US Government spends on NASA, it spends $US98 on social programs.
Although NASA was established on July 29, 1958, it didn't begin operations until October 1 that year.
It replaced the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics which had been around since 1915.
Race to the moon
The former Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1, on October 4, 1957, kick-starting the Space Race.
Not wanting to be left behind – and seeing the launch as a threat to security – US president Dwight D Eisenhower proposed NASA.
The Space Race would see then-Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and four American presidents – Dwight Eisenhower, John F Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon – in competition for more than a decade to see who had the most superior science and technology.
For a while it looked like the Soviet Union would win, with Sputnik I and II in space before the US launched its first satellite, the Explorer 1, in 1958.
The Soviets then landed a probe on the moon.
In 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first person to orbit Earth, and the Americans followed a year later.
In 1963, Soviet Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman in space. It was another two decades before Sally Ride became the first American woman in space.
Then in 1968 the US launched Apollo 8, the first manned mission to orbit the moon, and the following year Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first to walk on the moon, landing on the Sea of Tranquility on July 20, 1969.
Armstrong then told mission control: “Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed”.
Going to the toilet in space
With zero gravity and sunrise every 90 minutes, life in space can be a little challenging. For starters, there are no flushing toilets – air sucks everything out into a waste tank – and for doing number ones, each astronaut has their own urine funnel.
Without gravity the fluids in the body rise to your head, so it feels like you have a constant head cold. It also means you have to strap yourself down to sleep, so you don’t float around and bump into sensitive and expensive equipment. You can pretty much sleep anywhere, as long as you attach yourself to a wall.
Astronauts spend two hours exercising every day so their muscles don’t deteriorate. Every day in space, they take blood samples and analyse them.
To go for a spacewalk, astronauts have to go through a decompression process to avoid the bends. It involves 10 minutes on an exercise bike while breathing pure oxygen, then another 70 minutes hooked up to the oxygen as the pressure in the airlock is lowered.
At this point they put on the pressurised space suit and hang out breathing pure oxygen for another hour. After the spacewalk, they have to repressurise.
The average work day in space is 16 hours, spent conducting science and medical experiments, assembling the International Space Station and carrying out maintenance.
In space, astronauts still get weekends off – but they have to do housework and things that weren't done during the week (it’s not like they can go to the pub or the beach).
Space junk
We’ve made a big mess down here, so it’s no surprise that we’ve dirtied space too.
Thousands of probes and satellites have been sent up into space since 1957, and each mission leaves debris behind.
The BBC reports this “blanket of junk” orbiting the Earth at 40,233km/h consists of jettisoned spacecraft parts, abandoned satellites, paint chips, nuclear reactor cores and nuts and bolts.
NASA frequently replaces windows damaged by flying paint chips.
The Centre for Orbital and Reentry Debris Studies estimates there are around 70,000 objects 2cm in size orbiting 850-1000 km above the Earth. NASA believes much of this is frozen pieces of nuclear reactor coolant leaking from disused Russian satellites.
One of the problems with all this rubbish flying around is that it tends to collide with other bits of rubbish and break into smaller pieces, making the problem worse.
Conspiracy theories
The belief that NASA and the US Government have pulled the almighty wool over our eyes comes from analysis of photos of the moon landing, pointing to irregularities such as odd shadows and what looks like two or more photos being spliced together.
Conspiracy theorists believe NASA technology in the 1960s wasn’t good enough to put astronauts on the moon, so they faked it in a movie studio so they could win the space race.
There are NASA conspiracy blogs, the new Mars conspiracy and the movie Conspiracy Theory: Did We Land on the Moon?
The future
NASA spacecraft are checking out Mars, Saturn, Mercury and Pluto, while a mission to Jupiter is being planned. A NASA probe checked out some of Jupiter’s moons in February 2007 on its way to Pluto.
And when NASA finally sends astronauts to Mars, the whole world will be able to watch it due to technology from Australia's own CSIRO.
Interesting facts
In English, space travellers are called Astronauts; in Russian they are Cosmonauts; and in Mandarin they are Taikonauts. On Doctor Who, they are Timelords or archaeologists.
Most American astronauts come from Ohio – 24 of the 179 total, including Neil Armstrong. Only two have been called Smith.
Aliens might know a lot about Earth – but only as it was in the 70's. Images and sounds from Earth were recorded onto the Golden Record and sent into space with the two Voyager spacecraft in 1977, so any aliens who play them won't know about Britney Spears, Big Brother or the September 11th attacks.
Some scientists have warned that we are drawing too much attention to ourselves and risk alien invasion.
Skylab was the first US space station in orbit (1973-1979), but it re-entered the atmosphere and was destroyed, with bits landing over Western Australia and in the Indian Ocean.
Launched in April 1981, Columbia was the world’s first reusable spacecraft. Tragically, it broke up during re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere on February 1, 2003, killing all seven crew members.
There are 16 countries involved in the International Space Station which orbits Earth almost 16 times a day and is still being developed. By 2010 it will weigh almost 420 tonnes – about as much as 248 Holden VE Commodores. There are usually only three astronauts there at a time.
Pilots flying 80km above Earth are considered astronauts.
