Yesterday marked the bittersweet ending of the space shuttle program. When Atlantis touched down, it was the end of an era, and after 30 years the space shuttles get a chance to rest. If you are anything like us, you grew up with the space shuttles, and only heard about the Apollo missions because of the movie Apollo 13. NPR saved all of us the trouble and produced an amazing visual history of the space shuttle program.
NPR shows us some very basic shuttle information, and also tells us some very obscure information that the casual space enthusiast would never know. For example, the space shuttle Atlantis flew the second highest amount of missions: 33, but traveled the second fewest miles in its lifetime: 111.3 million miles. NPR also shows us size comparisons between the space shuttle and a Boeing 737, and much more.
Even more interesting than the information shown about the shuttles, NPR goes on to show us information about the astronauts that lived, worked, and died in the shuttles, including all the requirements to be a shuttle astronaut. Did you know that each shuttle mission takes up 100 tortillas into space? Each space suit costs $2 million, and takes 45 minutes to put on each time. Shockingly, the space suits aren’t custom made, and are designed to function for up to 15 years.
The more time we spent reviewing NPR’s information, the more excited we got about the future of space travel. It’s hard not to be amazed at some of the random facts provided. Check it out below:
