13 Things You Didn’t Know About Space Travel
1 The first astronauts to Mars may be departing sooner than you realize. In March, President Trump ordered NASA to get people there by 2033, and the agency is building a new rocket known as Space Launch System. It will be one heck of a ride. The heat energy produced by the system’s solid rocket boosters during the two-minute liftoff alone could power 92,000 homes for an entire day.
2 Meanwhile, at least four private companies are racing to be the first commercial taxi service to take paying customers into space: Boeing, Elon Musk’s Spacex, Jeff Bezos’s
Blue Origin, and Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic. The first flights will most likely be to the near edge of space—more than 100 miles above Earth—where tourists can experience weightlessness and marvel at the view. If you want to take a ride, prepare for sticker shock: Virgin Galactic is selling tickets for $250,000. About 700 people have signed up.
3 Beginning next year, it could be possible to make a cell phone call from space. A German company has teamed with Nokia to build the first 4G network on the moon in 2019. The system will allow astronauts to send videos back home. Other companies are planning satellite constellations that could make the Internet available to everyone on Earth.
4 Spending time in space takes a toll. In microgravity, you lose bone and muscle mass, and your
blood redistributes in your body, which can strain the heart. You also get hit by a considerable amount of radiation. NASA estimates that, at minimum, an astronaut is exposed to as much radiation as he or she would get from 150 chest X-rays.
5 Another physical challenge: More than half of American astronauts suffered from vision problems, especially after long-duration space station flights. Researchers say the issues could be related to fluid shifts in the body that put pressure on the eye nerves. The pressure can also permanently flatten the shape of the eyeball.
6 On the bright side, after about a month in space, big chunks of skin (calluses) fall off your feet, leaving them as soft as a baby’s. Could space travel be a mini fountain of youth? When researchers looked at astronaut Scott Kelly’s DNA, they found that the ends of his chromosomes got longer during his 340 days in space. That was surprising because they usually shorten as we age. “More research is needed, of course, but it certainly cracks open the question of whether spending time in space could reverse the aging process,” says Colorado State University’s Susan Bailey, PHD, who conducted the research.
7 Another perk of space travel: You get taller. Without gravity compressing his spine, Kelly stretched two inches on the International Space Station, according to his book Endurance: A Year in Space, a Lifetime of Discovery. Unfortunately, you shrink to your original height almost immediately upon your return.
8 But what about the accommodations up there? A U.S. company, Orion Span, recently began taking reservations for a luxury space hotel that could open by 2022. For just
$9.5 million, you get a 12-day stay and three months of training before you go. Russia’s space agency also announced a space hotel module that will attach to the International Space Station, to be delivered in 2021.
9 There’s a heavy-duty dress code. A NASA space suit weighs about 280 pounds on Earth, though in microgravity it feels like nothing.
10 Astronauts have more than 200 food and drink options, but “astronaut ice cream” is an intergalactic myth. In space, they get the real stuff.
One food that’s not recommended: bread. In 1965, two NASA astronauts had a corned beef sandwich and crumbs flew everywhere, a hazard that could have interfered with the flight equipment. (Tortilla wraps are now the sandwich maker of choice.)
11 Water is at a premium in space. In fact, what you drink is made from your own filtered sweat and urine. Since 2008, more than 22,500 pounds of water have been recycled from the space station crew’s urine.
12 By the way, that shooting star you wished upon may be a turd. Excrement produced on the space station is freeze-dried and discharged into space periodically. When it nears Earth, it burns up in the atmosphere and, according to NASA, looks just like a shooting star.
13 Decided to stay on terra firma? You can still check out the space station. Because it’s powered by a full acre of solar panels, you can sometimes see it flying at dawn or dusk, even in a big city. Find sighting schedules at spotthestation.nasa.gov.