Apollo Archives

April 9, 2013April 26, 2016 by Jason Major

Golden Spike Still Needs Your Help to Get to the Moon

Concept of a Golden Spike Co. lunar lander

Last December the Golden Spike Company announced its plans to enable private-sector lunar exploration missions which would be feasible, profitable, and possible — even without government funding. Comprised of veteran space program executives, managers, and engineers, Golden Spike intends to stand on the shoulders of current space technology to develop lunar transportation systems that can be used by agencies and private interests worldwide to get humans back to the Moon… but they still need your help getting the word out.

“We’re running an Indiegogo campaign as an experiment in public outreach and interest in human lunar expeditions,” Golden Spike CEO and planetary scientist Alan Stern explained to Universe Today in an email.

Recently Golden Spike started a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo with the goal of raising $240,000 for international outreach (that’s a dollar for every mile to the Moon!) but, with only 16 10 days left in the campaign, only ~~$9,400~~ $12,134 has been contributed.* While dollar-for-mile that’s still farther than any humans have traveled into space since Apollo, it’s unfortunately quite short of their goal.

CEO and famed planetary scientist Alan Stern blames himself.

“Simply put, we didn’t put the right people and resources on this Indiegogo campaign,” Stern wrote in an announcement on the Indiegogo site on April 9.

But despite the small amount of time remaining, he’s not giving up.

“We’re going to take advantage of the press of time left — just 16 days — to reach out to the broader public about people they can be a part of a historic new era of human lunar exploration,” Stern writes.

“To do that, you’ll be seeing Golden Spike in the press quite a bit more the next two weeks.”

And he’s asking for your continued help to not just contribute, but also to get the word out.

“Speak to friends and colleagues. Message on sites like Twitter and Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn. Send emails. Heck, put up signs and hand out flyers! We’re in the final phases of this campaign, ask people to join in. Let them know why you joined. Tell them their participation will make a huge difference… If we do this right, we can succeed.”

While contributions to the Golden Spike campaign won’t be used to launch rockets or build Moon bases, they will be used to reach out to potential international partners and show them that people are indeed interested in getting people back to the Moon… proven by the fact that they’ll even put some of their own money into the venture.

Small donations, large donations… each contribution no matter the size shows that people will invest in a future of lunar exploration. Put some “skin in the game,” if you will.

Click here to contribute to the Golden Spike campaign. And even if you can’t contribute financially, help get the word out. Share this article, tell people about the campaign, let them know that our future on the Moon doesn’t have to rely on fickle government funding or be subject to catastrophic budget cuts.

We got there before, we can get there again. The Moon awaits.

“Make the point that 40-plus years of waiting for governments to do this for us showed that the people who want humans to explore the Moon have to take personal action if we want it.”

– Alan Stern, planetary scientist and Golden Spike Company CEO

PS: Be sure to email [email protected] when you donate to the campaign and let them know your name, city, and state, and who referred you to donate (in this case, Universe Today.) They’re giving prizes for the top US state, top country, and top referrals!

(*Article updated on April 15.)

March 28, 2013December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Apollo 11 in 100 Seconds

apollo 11 logo

Here’s a look at Apollo 11 for those with short attention spans. In just 100 seconds you can see the highlights of one of the most extraordinary voyages in human history. “Even short 1-second shots can reveal an incredible amount of information,” says Spacecraft Films, the company that has produced tons of great videos/DVDs of our explorations of space.

If you’re into getting more detail, below is an incredibly slow and in-depth look at the launch of the 4th flight of the Saturn I rocket, which took place 50 years ago today. This is also from Spacecraft Films.

Apollo 11 In 100 Seconds from Spacecraft Films on Vimeo.

March 20, 2013December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Apollo Rocket Engines Recovered from Atlantic Ocean Floor

Apollo F-1 Thrust Chamber on ocean floor. Credit: Bezos Expeditions

Last year, Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos announced that he had located some of the Apollo F-1 rocket engines and planned to recover them. He and his Bezos Expedition team were successful in recovering engines that helped power Apollo astronauts to the Moon and have now brought “a couple of your F-1s home,” Bezos said in a message to NASA. On the Bezos Expedition website, Bezos called the recovery “an incredible adventure.”

Here are some pictures and a video of the recovery:

NASA was happy about the recovery as well.

“This is a historic find and I congratulate the team for its determination and perseverance in the recovery of these important artifacts of our first efforts to send humans beyond Earth orbit,” said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden in a statement. “We look forward to the restoration of these engines by the Bezos team and applaud Jeff’s desire to make these historic artifacts available for public display.”

There is no indication so far from Bezos of which flight these engines were from. Last year when Bezos made his announcement, he said they had found the engines from Apollo 11, but it may be been difficult to determine exactly which flight the ones found were from. In total, NASA launched 65 F-1 engines, five per flight, on 13 Saturn V boosters between 1967 and 1973. Supposedly there would be serial numbers to make the identification of which flight these engines were from. Bezos indicated on his blog they were still on the ship, so perhaps the identification will come later.

Five F-1 engines were used in the 138-foot-tall S-IC, or first stage, of each Saturn V, which depended on the five-engine cluster for the 7.5 million pounds of thrust needed to lift it from the launch pad. Each of the engines stands 19 feet tall by 12 feet wide and weigh over 18,000 pounds.

F-1 Thrust Chamber. Credit: Bezos Expeditions

Bezos and his team spent three weeks at sea, working almost 3 miles below the surface. “We found so much,” Bezos wrote. “We’ve seen an underwater wonderland – an incredible sculpture garden of twisted F-1 engines that tells the story of a fiery and violent end, one that serves testament to the Apollo program. We photographed many beautiful objects in situ and have now recovered many prime pieces. Each piece we bring on deck conjures for me the thousands of engineers who worked together back then to do what for all time had been thought surely impossible.”

Gas Generator and Manifold. Credit: Bezos Expeditions

Thrust Chamber and Fuel Manifold. Credit: Bezos Expeditions

Nozzle on the ocean floor. Credit: Bezos Expeditions

Saturn V Stage Structure. Credit: Bezos Expeditions.

See more images and descriptions at the Bezos Expeditions website.

March 20, 2013April 26, 2016 by David Dickinson

U.S. To Restart Plutonium Production for Deep Space Exploration

A marshmellow-sized Pu-238 pellet awaits a space mission. (Credit: The Department of Energy).

The end of NASA’s plutonium shortage may be in sight. On Monday March 18^th, NASA’s planetary science division head Jim Green announced that production of Plutonium-238 (Pu-238) by the United States Department of Energy (DOE) is currently in the test phases leading up to a restart of full scale production.

“By the end of the calendar year, we’ll have a complete plan from the Department of Energy on how they’ll be able to satisfy our requirement of 1.5 to 2 kilograms a year.” Green said at the 44^th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference being held in Woodlands, Texas this past Monday.

This news comes none too soon. We’ve written previously on the impending Plutonium shortage and the consequences it has for future deep space exploration. Solar power is adequate in most cases when you explore the inner solar system, but when you venture out beyond the asteroid belt, you need nuclear power to do it.

Production of the isotope Pu-238 was a fortunate consequence of the Cold War. First produced by Glen Seaborg in 1940, the weapons grade isotope of plutonium (-239) is produced via bombarding neptunium (which itself is a decay product of uranium-238) with neutrons. Use the same target isotope of Neptunium-237 in a fast reactor, and Pu-238 is the result. Pu-238 produces 280x times the decay heat at 560 watts per kilogram versus weapons grade Pu-239 and is ideal as a compact source of energy for deep space exploration.

Since 1961, over 26 U.S. spacecraft have been launched carrying Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generators (MMRTG, or formerly simply RTGs) as power sources and have explored every planet except Mercury. RTGs were used by the Apollo Lunar Surface Experiments Package (ALSEP) science payloads left on by the astronauts on the Moon, and Cassini, Mars Curiosity and New Horizons enroute to explore Pluto in July 2015 are all nuclear powered.

Plutonium powered RTGs are the only technology that we have currently in use that can carry out deep space exploration. NASA’s Juno spacecraft will be the first to reach Jupiter in 2016 without the use of a nuclear-powered RTG, but it will need to employ 3 enormous 2.7 x 8.9 metre solar panels to do it.

The plutonium power source inside the Mars Science Laboratory's MMRTG during assembly at the Idaho National Laboratory. (Credit: Department of Energy?National Laboratory image under a Creative Commons Generic Attribution 2.0 License). — The plutonium power source inside the Mars Science Laboratory’s MMRTG during assembly at the Idaho National Laboratory. (Credit: Department of Energy/Idaho National Laboratory image under a Creative Commons Generic Attribution 2.0 License).

The problem is, plutonium production in the U.S. ceased in 1988 with the end of the Cold War. How much Plutonium-238 NASA and the DOE has stockpiled is classified, but it has been speculated that it has at most enough for one more large Flag Ship class mission and perhaps a small Scout class mission. Plus, once weapons grade plutonium-239 is manufactured, there’s no re-processing it the desired Pu-238 isotope. The plutonium that currently powers Curiosity across the surface of Mars was bought from the Russians, and that source ended in 2010. New Horizons is equipped with a spare MMRTG that was built for Cassini, which was launched in 1999.

Technicians handle an RTG at the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center for the Cassini spacecraft. (Credit: NASA).

As an added bonus, plutonium powered missions often exceed expectations as well. For example, the Voyager 1 & 2 spacecraft had an original mission duration of five years and are now expected to continue well into their fifth decade of operation. Mars Curiosity doesn’t suffer from the issues of “dusty solar panels” that plagued Spirit and Opportunity and can operate through the long Martian winter. Incidentally, while the Spirit and Opportunity rovers were not nuclear powered, they did employ tiny pellets of plutonium oxide in their joints to stay warm, as well as radioactive curium to provide neutron sources in their spectrometers. It’s even quite possible that any alien intelligence stumbles upon the five spacecraft escaping our solar system (Pioneer 10 & 11, Voyagers 1 & 2, and New Horizons) could conceivably date their departure from Earth by measuring the decay of their plutonium power source. (Pu-238 has a half life of 87.7 years and eventually decays after transitioning through a long series of daughter isotopes into lead-206).

New Horizons in the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at the Kennedy Space Center. Note the RTG (black) protruding from the spacecraft. (Credit: NASA/Uwe W.)

The current production run of Pu-238 will be carried out at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) using its High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR). “Old” Pu-238 can also be revived by adding newly manufactured Pu-238 to it.

“For every 1 kilogram, we really revive two kilograms of the older plutonium by mixing it… it’s a critical part of our process to be able to utilize our existing supply at the energy density we want it,” Green told a recent Mars exploration planning committee.

Still, full target production of 1.5 kilograms per year may be some time off. For context, the Mars rover Curiosity utilizes 4.8 kilograms of Pu-238, and New Horizons contains 11 kilograms. No missions to the outer planets have left Earth since the launch of Curiosity in November 2011, and the next mission likely to sport an RTG is the proposed Mars 2020 rover. Ideas on the drawing board such as a Titan lake lander and a Jupiter Icy Moons mission would all be nuclear powered.

Engineers perform a fit check of the MMRTG on Curiousity at the Kennedy Space Center. The final installation of the MMRTG occured the evening prior to launch. (Credit: NASA/Cory Huston). — Engineers perform a fit check of the MMRTG on Curiosity at the Kennedy Space Center. The final installation of the MMRTG occurred the evening prior to launch. (Credit: NASA/Cory Huston).

Along with new plutonium production, NASA plans to have two new RTGs dubbed Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generators (ASRGs) available by 2016. While more efficient, the ASRG may not always be the device of choice. For example, Curiosity uses its MMRTG waste heat to keep instruments warm via Freon circulation. Curiosity also had to vent waste heat produced by the 110-watt generator while cooped up in its aero shell enroute to Mars.

Cutaway diagram of the Advanced Stirling Radioisotope Generator. (Credit: DOE/NASA).

And of course, there are the added precautions that come with launching a nuclear payload. The President of the United States had to sign off on the launch of Curiosity from the Florida Space Coast. The launch of Cassini, New Horizons, and Curiosity all drew a scattering of protesters, as does anything nuclear related. Never mind that coal fired power plants produce radioactive polonium, radon and thorium as an undesired by-product daily.

An RTG (in the foreground on the pallet) left on the Moon by astronauts during Apollo 14. (Credit: NASA/Alan Shepard).

Said launches aren’t without hazards, albeit with risks that can be mitigated and managed. One of the most notorious space-related nuclear accidents occurred early in the U.S. space program with the loss of an RTG-equipped Transit-5BN-3 satellite off of the coast of Madagascar shortly after launch in 1964. And when Apollo 13 had to abort and return to Earth, the astronauts were directed to ditch the Aquarius Landing Module along with its nuclear-powered science experiments meant for the surface of the Moon in the Pacific Ocean near the island of Fiji. (They don’t tell you that in the movie) One wonders if it would be cost effective to “resurrect” this RTG from the ocean floor for a future space mission. On previous nuclear-equipped launches such as New Horizons, NASA placed the chance of a “launch accident that could release plutonium” at 350-to-1 against Even then, the shielded RTG is “over-engineered” to survive an explosion and impact with the water.

But the risks are worth the gain in terms of new solar system discoveries. In a brave new future of space exploration, the restart of plutonium production for peaceful purposes gives us hope. To paraphrase Carl Sagan, space travel is one of the best uses of nuclear fission that we can think of!

March 16, 2013December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

Survival: Terrifying Moments in Space Flight

Apollo 13's dangerous explosion in 1970 inspired a movie, released in 1995, that starred (left to right) Bill Paxton, Kevin Bacon and Tom Hanks. Credit: Universal Pictures

Space is a dangerous and sometimes fatal business, but happily there were moments where a situation happened and the astronauts were able to recover.

An example: today (March 16) in 1966, Neil Armstrong and Dave Scott were just starting the Gemini 8 mission. They latched on to an Agena target in the hopes of doing some docking maneuvers. Then the spacecraft started spinning inexplicably.

They undocked and found themselves tumbling once per second while still out of reach of ground stations. A thruster was stuck open. Quick-thinking Armstrong engaged the landing system and stabilized the spacecraft. This cut the mission short, but saved the astronauts’ lives.

Gemini 8's Agena target before a stuck thruster on the spacecraft put the astronauts in a terrifying tumble. Credit: NASA — Gemini 8’s Agena target before a stuck thruster on the spacecraft put the astronauts in a terrifying tumble. Credit: NASA

Here are some other scary moments that astronauts in space faced, and survived:

Friendship 7: False landing bag indicator (1962)

Astronaut John Glenn views stencilling used as a model to paint the words "Friendship 7" on his spacecraft. Credit: NASA — Astronaut John Glenn views stencilling used as a model to paint the words “Friendship 7” on his spacecraft. Credit: NASA

John Glenn was only the third American in space, so you can imagine the amount of media attention he received during his three-orbit flight. NASA received an indication that his landing bag had deployed while he was still in space. Friendship 7’s Mercury spacecraft had its landing cushion underneath the heat shield, so NASA feared it had ripped away. Officials eventually informed Glenn to keep his retrorocket package strapped to the spacecraft during re-entry, rather than jettisoning it, in the hopes the package would keep the heat shield on. Glenn arrived home safely. It turned out to be a false indicator.

Apollo 11: Empty fuel tank (1969)

Apollo 11's Eagle spacecraft, as seen from fellow spaceship Columbia. Credit: NASA — Apollo 11’s Eagle spacecraft, as seen from fellow spaceship Columbia. Credit: NASA

Shortly after Neil Armstrong announced “Houston, Tranquility Base, here, the Eagle has landed” during Apollo 11, capsule communicator Charlie Duke answered, “Roger, Tranquility. We copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We’re breathing again. Thanks a lot.” They weren’t holding their breath just because it was the first landing on the moon; Armstrong was navigating a spacecraft that was almost out of fuel. The spacecraft Eagle overshot its landing and Armstrong did a series of maneuvers to put it on relatively flat ground. Accounts say he had less than 30 seconds of fuel when he landed on July 20, 1969.

Apollo 12: Lightning strike (1969)

Apollo 12's launch in 1969, moments before the rocket was struck by lightning. Credit: NASA — Apollo 12’s launch in 1969, moments before the rocket was struck by lightning. Credit: NASA

Moments after Apollo 12 headed from ground towards orbit, a lightning bolt hit the rocket and caused the spacecraft to go into what appeared to be a sort of zombie mode. The rocket was still flying, but the astronauts (and people on the ground) were unsure what to do. Scrambling, one controller suggested a command that essentially reset the spacecraft, and Apollo 12 was on its way. NASA did take some time to do some double-checking in orbit, to be sure, before carrying on with the rest of the mission. The agency also changed procedures about launching in stormy weather.

Apollo 13: Oxygen tank explosion (1970)

Evidence of the Apollo 13 explosion on the spacecraft Odyssey. Credit: NASA — Evidence of the Apollo 13 explosion on the service module. Credit: NASA

The astronauts of Apollo 13 performed a routine stir of the oxygen tanks on April 13, 1970. That’s when they felt the spacecraft shudder around them, and warning lights lit up. It turned out that an oxygen tank, damaged through a series of ground errors, had exploded in the service module that fed the spacecraft Odyssey, damaging some of its systems. The astronauts survived for days on minimal power in Aquarius, the healthy lunar module that was originally supposed to land on the moon. They arrived home exhausted and cold, but very much alive.

Apollo-Soyuz Test Project: Toxic vapours during landing (1975)

The Apollo command module used in the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, during recovery. Credit: NASA

The Apollo-Soyuz Test Project was supposed to test out how well American and Russian systems (and people) would work together in space. Using an Apollo command module and a Russian Soyuz, astronauts and cosmonauts met in orbit and marked the first mission between the two nations. That almost ended in tragedy when the Americans returned to Earth and their spacecraft was inadvertently flooded with vapours from the thruster fuel. “I started to grunt-breathe to make sure I got pressure in my lungs to keep my head clear. I looked over at Vance [Brand] and he was just hanging in his straps. He was unconscious,” recalled commander Deke Slayton, in a NASA history book about the event. Slayton ensured the entire crew had oxygen masks, Brand revived quickly, and the mission ended shortly afterwards.

Mir: The fire (1997)

Jerry Linenger dons a mask during his mission on Mir in 1997. Credit: NASA

The crew on Mir was igniting a perchlorate canister for supplemental oxygen when it unexpectedly ignited. As they scrambled to put out the fire, NASA astronaut Jerry Linenger discovered at least one oxygen mask on board were malfunctioning as well. The crew managed to contain the fire quickly. Even though it affected life aboard the station for a while afterwards, the crew survived, did not need to evacuate, and helped NASA learn lessons that they still use aboard the International Space Station today.

STS-51F: Abort to orbit (1985)

STS-51F aborted to orbit during its launch. Credit: NASA

The crew of space shuttle Challenger endured two aborts on this mission. The first one took place at T-3 seconds on July 12, when a coolant valve in one of the shuttle’s engines malfunctioned. NASA fixed the problem, only to face another abort situation shortly after liftoff on July 29. One of the engines shut down too early, forcing the crew to abort to orbit. The crew was able to carry on its mission, however, including many science experiments aboard Spacelab.

STS-114: Foam hitting Discovery (2005)

Discovery during STS-114, as seen from the International Space Station. CREDIT: NASA

When Discovery lifted off in 2005, the fate of the entire shuttle program was resting upon its shoulders. NASA had implemented a series of fixes after the Columbia disaster of 2003, including redesigning the process that led to foam shedding off Columbia’s external tank and breaching the shuttle wing. Wayne Hale, a senior official in the shuttle program, later recalled his terror when he heard of more foam loss on Discovery: “I think that must have been the worst call of my life. Once earlier I had gotten a call that my child had been in an auto accident and was being taken to the hospital in an ambulance. That was a bad call. This was worse.” The foam, thankfully, struck nothing crucial and the crew survived. NASA later discovered the cracks in the foam are linked to changes in temperature the tank undergoes, and made more changes in time for a much more successful mission in 2006.

We’ve probably missed some scary moments in space, so which ones do you recall?

March 13, 2013December 23, 2015 by Nancy Atkinson

Live from 1969: Apollo 9 Returns Home

The crew of Apollo 9: Commander James McDivitt, Command Module Pilot Dave Scott and Lunar Module Pilot Rusty Schweickart. Credit: NASA

“On the success of Apollo 9 mission hangs the hope for future manned missions to the Moon,” said famous CBS newsman Walter Cronkite. HD TV it’s not, but this is a fun look back at actual news footage from the Apollo 9 mission, which landed back on Earth on March 13, 1969, forty-four years ago today.

The ten-day Apollo 9 mission was the first manned flight of the lunar module and while in Earth orbit the crew tested the spacecraft for lunar operations. The crew included Commander Jim McDivitt, Command Module pilot Dave Scott and one of our favorite astronauts, the Lunar Module pilot Rusty Schweickart.

They successfully demonstrated the complete rendezvous and docking operations and conducted an EVA during their 151 Earth orbits. The mission carried the largest payload at that point in time to Earth orbit.

February 28, 2013December 23, 2015 by Elizabeth Howell

The Men Who Didn’t Go to the Moon

Elliott See (left) and Charlie Bassett, who were slated to fly aboard the Gemini 9 mission. Credit: NASA

On this day (Feb. 28) in 1966, the Gemini 9 prime crew was in a T-38 airplane making a final approach to a McDonnell Aircraft plant in St. Louis, Missouri. Amid deteriorating weather conditions, Elliot See tried to make a landing. His airplane collided with the factory building in which his spacecraft was under construction. The plane crashed, killing both See and his crewmate Charlie Bassett.

The accident sent shockwaves through the small astronaut corps, and also necessitated some hasty reassignments. The Gemini 9 backup crew of Tom Stafford and Eugene Cernan immediately became the prime crew and launched into space on May 17, 1966 on a mission that included a challenging spacewalk for Cernan.

But according to Deke Slayton, who was responsible for crew selections at the time, the deaths of See and Bassett even affected the Moon missions of Apollo.

“I … had a lot of plans for Charlie Bassett — after GT-9 [Gemini 9] he would have moved on to command module pilot for Frank Borman’s Apollo crew. Elliott was going to be backup commander for GT-12,” wrote Slayton in his memoir Deke!, which he created with help from Twilight Zone writer (and multiple book author) Michael Cassutt.

In Slayton’s mind, the loss of this one crew affected assignments all the way to the first crew who landed on the Moon: Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on Apollo 11. (Michael Collins was also on the mission, but remained in orbit in the command module.)

Buzz Aldrin on the Moon for Apollo 11. Credit: NASA

“All the backups were changed, and Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin wound up being pointed at GT-12,” Slayton wrote. “Without flying GT-12, it was very unlikely that Buzz would have been in any position to be lunar module pilot on the first landing attempt.”

It’s possible this crash could even have affected Apollo 13, which happened four years later.

Jim Lovell flew on Apollo 8 as the command module pilot. While Slayton didn’t state it, Lovell’s experience on that mission likely led to his appointment as commander for Apollo 14. Fate then shifted him forward a flight to the ill-fated Apollo 13, which was crippled by an oxygen tank explosion, after the original commander of that flight, Al Shepard, required a little more time for training.

As for See and Bassett, their remains were buried at Arlington National Cemetery, which is also home to many other fallen crews. Several crew members from Apollo 1, the Challenger disaster and the Columbia disaster have been laid to rest there.

February 5, 2013January 4, 2016 by Nancy Atkinson

Space Generations: Gene Cernan Talks with ISS Crew

It was a feel-good moment in NASA’s Mission Control in Houston: Apollo astronaut Gene Cernan dialed up the International Space Station crew to chat. There was banter back and forth about how Cernan was part of the generation that inspired the current ISS crew, and how the ISS crews are inspiring the next generation.

“You are now the shoulders for the kids to stand upon,” Cernan told ISS commander Kevin Ford. Cernan, who has expressed dismay at NASA’s current path, said he was mightily impressed with what the ISS crews are doing. “I’m envious,” he said. “I wish I could be up there with you. You guys are doing one heckuva great job. You have a big legacy to build upon and from where you leave off we’re gonna get these kids down here excited about pressing on and going even further… I’m personally proud.”

February 2, 2013April 26, 2016 by Jason Major

There’s Poop on the Moon

When the Apollo boys visited the Moon back in the ’60s and ’70s they left more than just some experiments, rovers, and family portraits behind –- they also left, shall we say, a little bit of themselves on the lunar surface. It makes total sense when you think about it, but still… there’s poop on the Moon.

In this video, Minute Physics and Destin from Smarter Every Day show how astronauts would relieve themselves during the Apollo missions (or at least the gadgets they used — we all know how they did it) and why it was decided to make astronaut poop a permanent part of their lunar litter.

(Because there’s no public toilets in the Sea of Tranquility.)

In another video Destin goes on to discuss some of the other things the Apollo astronauts left on the lunar surface as part of their… duties… most notably the Laser Ranging Retroreflectors that are still being used today to measure distances between Earth and the Moon. Destin explains how their corner-cube reflectors work — using, fittingly, the mirrors in a restroom shared with NASA at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. Check out the video below.

According to the Lunar and Planetary Institute: “The Laser Ranging Retroreflector experiment has produced many important measurements. These include an improved knowledge of the Moon’s orbit and the rate at which the Moon is receding from Earth (currently 3.8 centimeters per year) and of variations in the rotation of the Moon. These variations in rotation are related to the distribution of mass inside the Moon and imply the existence of a small core, with a radius of less than 350 kilometers, somewhat smaller than the limits imposed by the passive seismic and magnetometer experiments. These measurements have also improved our knowledge of changes of the Earth’s rotation rate and the precession of its spin axis and have been used to test Einstein’s theory of relativity.”

Want to see how corner-cube reflectors work? Click here.

The Laser Ranging Retroreflector experiment deployed on Apollo 11 (NASA)

Just goes to show that not everything that got left behind was crap.

See more videos from Destin at Smarter Every Day here and more Minute Physics here.

January 25, 2013June 5, 2022 by Ken Kremer

NASA: Reaches for New Heights – Greatest Hits Video

Video Caption: At NASA, we’ve been a little busy: landing on Mars, developing new human spacecraft, going to the space station, working with commercial partners, observing the Earth and the Sun, exploring our solar system and understanding our universe. And that’s not even everything.Credit: NASA

Check out this cool action packed video titled “NASA: Reaching for New Heights” – to see NASA’s ‘Greatest Hits’ from the past year

The 4 minute film is a compilation of NASA’s gamut of Robotic Science and Human Spaceflight achievements to explore and understand Planet Earth here at home and the heavens above- ranging from our Solar System and beyond to the Galaxy and the vast expanse of the Universe.

Image caption: Planets and Moons in perspective. Credit: NASA

The missions and programs featured include inspiringly beautiful imagery from : Curiosity, Landsat, Aquarius, GRACE, NuSTAR, GRAIL, Dawn at Asteroid Vesta, SDO, X-48C Amelia, Orion, SLS, Apollo, SpaceX, Sierra Nevada Dream Chaser, Boeing CST-100, Commercial Crew, Hurricane Sandy from the ISS, Robonaut and more !

And even more space exploration thrills are coming in 2013 !

Ken Kremer

Image caption: SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasts off on May 22, 2012 with Dragon cargo capsule from Space Launch Complex-40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla., on the first commercial mission to the International Space Station. The next launch is set for March 1, 2013. Credit: Ken Kremer