Space Facts and Trivia

The fascination with space and celestial bodies continues on today. Interestingly, we know more about space than we do about what is going on in our deep oceans. In this article, you will encounter a collection of space facts and trivia.

Longest Space Walk

The longest-ever spacewalk took place from March 10 to 11, 2001. Mission specialists named James Voss and Susan Helms stepped outside of the space shuttle Discovery STS-102 to complete a bite of construction work on the space station. The time spent outside of the station is called extra vehicular activity (or EVA). It lasted 8 hours and 56 minutes.

What is the International Space Station?

The building of the International Space Station (ISS, for short) started in 1998 and has been permanently manned since 2000. The project was a joint venture between the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, and the European Space Agency. The artificial satellite in low Earth orbit is habitable, as crews have already experienced life onboard. For example, food eaten by the crew is kept in frozen or refrigerated storage. Canned foods are also eaten. Interestingly, the fluid shift to the head reduces the sense of taste while in orbit, which makes spicy food a favorite of many astronauts.

The space station is used for research purposes and accommodates physicists, astronomers, and meteorologists. Some study the effects on the human as they spend long stays in space. With each new mission, the Space Station continues to grow in size because more components are constantly being added. Positioned 217 miles over Earth, it orbits our planet more than 15 times per day.

Energy for the space station comes from solar power. Systems have been implemented that generate oxygen and process water, but the crew relies on supply ships from Earth for deliveries of food. Crew members are periodically replaced. All of the traffic to the satellite makes it the most-visited spacecraft in history. More than 160 people travel to the satellite since it was launched.

Other interesting facts about space include:

Because they are closest to the Sun , Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars are called the inner planets.

The largest volcano in the Solar System is not found on Earth, but is on Mars. Called Olympus Mons, this formation measures 370 miles (595 km) across and rises 15 miles (24 km) into the air.

The date officially given to the start of the Space Age is October 4, 1957.

Whoever came up with this fact had too much time on their hands”¦.but if you tried to count all the stars in the galaxy at a rate of one every second, it would take about 3,000 years to count all of them.

To date, the Brits have only launched one satellite into space and it was called Black Arrow. Developed during the 1960s, the satellite was used for four launches that took place between 1969 and 1971.

Space debris does find its way back to Earth, the odds of dying from coming in contact with it is 1 in 5 billion.