Thursday Thirteen: Space Edition

Last night around 6:35 p.m., Artemis II blasted off into space, taking with it four people who will orbit the moon.

It's a feat not attempted in over 50 years.

So here are some space facts to acknowledge this mighty and exciting adventure.

1. Artemis II will be the first crewed mission to leave low‑Earth orbit since 1972. Low‑Earth orbit (LEO) is the zone close to Earth where the International Space Station circles. Humans haven’t gone beyond it since Apollo 17 launched on December 7, 1972, and returned on December 19, 1972.

2. The crew will ride inside the Orion spacecraft. Orion is NASA’s new human‑rated capsule. It’s the part that holds the astronauts, keeps them alive, and brings them home. Artemis I flew it without people; Artemis II is the first time it carries a crew.

3. The rocket that launches Orion is called the Space Launch System (SLS). SLS is NASA’s heavy‑lift rocket. Think of it as the muscle that gets Orion off Earth. Once its job is done, it falls away and Orion continues the journey.

4. Orion’s heat shield is the largest ever built for a human spacecraft. It has to survive re‑entry from lunar speeds, which are about 25,000 mph. That's far faster than anything returning from low‑Earth orbit.

 

5. The Moon is slowly drifting away from Earth. About 1.5 inches per year. Over millions of years, that adds up to real distance. 

6. NASA’s Deep Space Network can hear signals weaker than a refrigerator light bulb from billions of miles away. Three giant antenna complexes, one each in California, Spain, and Australia, keep spacecraft talking to Earth long after they’re tiny specks in the dark.

7. The International Space Station orbits Earth every 90 minutes. Astronauts see 16 sunrises and sunsets a day. Their internal clocks do the best they can.

8. Voyager 1 is so far away that its radio signal takes more than 22 hours to reach Earth. And it’s still sending back data, albeit slowly, faintly, and stubbornly.

9. The Moon has moonquakes. Some come from tidal forces, some from meteor impacts, and some from the lunar surface expanding and contracting as it heats and cools.

10. A spacesuit is basically a one‑person spacecraft. It controls pressure, temperature, oxygen, carbon dioxide, and waste. It’s life support wrapped around a human body.

11. Artemis aims to land the first woman and the first person of color on the Moon. This is a deliberate shift in who gets written into exploration history.

12. Earth’s atmosphere is astonishingly thin. If Earth were the size of an apple, the atmosphere would be about as thick as the skin. Everything we breathe and depend on is in that fragile layer.

13. Every footprint left on the Moon is still there. No wind, no rain, no erosion. There's just dust and time. They’ll remain for centuries, maybe longer.

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Thursday Thirteen is played by lots of people; there is a list here if you want to read other Thursday Thirteens and/or play along. I've been playing for a while, and this is my 953rd time to do a list of 13 on a Thursday. Or so sayth the Blogger counter, anyway.