Introduction:
Space travel is no longer science fiction. We have both rockets and satellites in space. The exploration of space has been going on for more than 50 years already. However, being able to travel to outer space and especially to live in it is still an ultimate dream for many people. Let's take a look at some interesting facts about space travel.
Space travel is a dream come true for the majority of people on this planet. Of all space missions performed, the most notable is certainly the work done by NASA and other astronauts who have been to space. There was even a time when we thought that space travel was going to be something as simple as a distant future reality. But despite all odds, we still have not fully realized our vision for a spaceship to take off from Earth's surface and land on Mars in an attempt to settle down there for good.
There are no bathrooms.
There are no bathrooms on the International Space Station. The only way to relieve yourself is to go down to Earth, where you're likely to be met with a lot of strange looks.
That's because people are used to seeing toilets right there in front of them wherever they go, whether it's in the airport, in their home, or at work.
But that's not how it works in space: there are no toilets on the ISS or other spacecraft. Instead, astronauts have a waste management system that recycles urine and feces into drinking water and oxygen.
Space travel is, of course, a lot of fun. But space itself is not a place where you can just pee.
There is no gravity in space. So when people get into space suits and go outside, they have to wear little devices called "clothing" that are like diapers but don't contain any urine or feces. That's because the air pressure in space is so low that if you had any bodily waste, it would just float off into the void of space.
That means if you wanted to take a leak in space, you'd have to do it in your suit — which wouldn't be comfortable for long periods of time.
You can't drink the water.
1. The first human to live in space was Valery Bykovsky. He spent 15 days aboard the Soviets' Vostok 1 spacecraft in 1965, and he returned to Earth with a full stomach, no hair, and an empty bladder.
2. The first man in space was Yuri Gagarin. He orbited Earth on April 12th and 13th, 1961.
3. NASA has never lost a crew member during a mission—not even Aldrin when he accidentally hit his head on the window of his Gemini 8 capsule after becoming tangled in its parachutes during a malfunction that left him weightless for several hours as he floated around inside his capsule.
4. You can't drink the water in space because it's not pure—it contains traces of everything from dust particles to cosmic rays to micrometers (smaller than raindrops).
5. You can feel your heartbeat speed up when you're in space because you're traveling at more than 7 miles per second relative to the Earth's surface and gravity is pulling on your body at this speed as well as sending blood rushing through your veins at a faster rate.
It's a long, long trip.
In fact, Mars is so far away from the Earth that even if you could travel at the speed of light (which is impossible), it would take more than eight months to get there. But if you were to travel at the speed of sound (which is pretty fast), it would only take three weeks to get there.
And then there's the issue with time dilation — time slows down as you approach a black hole, so your journey to Mars would take longer than it does on Earth!
It's a long, long trip. The Voyager missions to the outer solar system were launched in 1977 and will continue to operate for at least until 2025.
Voyagers 1 and 2 were both launched on August 20, 1977, from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They carried a gold-plated message engraved with music and pictures that were intended for extraterrestrial life forms.
The two Voyagers flew past Jupiter, Saturn, and Uranus before heading out of the Solar System. Voyager 1 traveled further than any spacecraft before it, passing beyond Pluto into interstellar space in 2012.
In 2013 NASA announced that Voyager 1 had entered interstellar space, making it the first man-made object to do so. The spacecraft is now traveling at approximately 0.05c (31km/s) — faster than any other probe or human-made object ever traveled.
The food isn't great.
"The food is not as good as it used to be," said astronaut Michael López-Alegría. "It's not bad, but it's not the same quality as you would get at home."
The astronauts' food is prepared in advance and frozen to preserve its nutritional value. The freeze-dried meals have a shelf life of up to 25 years, according to NASA.
"It's pretty good," said Chris Hadfield, who spent five months on the International Space Station in 2013. "You get used to eating it."
But even if you're eating freeze-dried meals that taste like cardboard, there are some things you should know about space travel.
It's expensive to get there and back!
Space travel is expensive. It's expensive to get there and back!
The nearest star to Earth, Alpha Centauri, is about 4.4 light years away. That's about 25 trillion miles. To get there and back would require the fastest human-made object ever built, which is the Voyager 1 spacecraft that was launched in 1977, and made there in 1981. It took Voyager 1 more than 27 years to make the round trip.
There are many factors that go into making a space launch, but the most important one is fuel costs. The average cost of launching a rocket from the United States is $531 million per launch; that's less than half what it costs for an average commercial airliner flight from New York City to Los Angeles (about $1 billion).
There are a lot of people who think that space travel is not expensive, but it's actually quite expensive.
The average cost of going to the moon is around $20 billion, while it costs about $10 billion to get there and back from Earth. That was pretty expensive!
If you want to do more exotic things like go to Mars, you're looking at a price tag of about $100 billion. And if you want to go even further out into deep space, then you're looking at around $1 trillion for just one trip!
Conclusion:
These are some of the advances one can expect to see in our lifetimes and in the coming years. But what about longer terms goals such as the colonization of other planets? And what about interstellar exploration? Will robots ever replace astronauts? Only time will tell. In this way, space travel will not just be essential for human survival, it may also be the key to our continued growth as a species.
Space travel is certainly a fascinating subject. It's also one that we will likely be hearing about more and more in the coming years. With the number of private companies launching rockets into space on the rise, we will no doubt be keeping up with new developments and discoveries for years to come. Who knows? Maybe one day you'll be jetting off to another planet for your next vacation.