stackyFACTSIt is officially time to unlearn absolutely everything your elementary school science teacher confidently told you about space capsules.
It is officially time to unlearn absolutely everything your elementary school science teacher confidently told you about space capsules. The blinding, terrifying plasma inferno immediately outside the tiny window isn't actually caused by the craft violently rubbing against the atmosphere; it violently happens because the heavy ship is moving at Mach 25, ruthlessly crushing the air molecules in front of it so intensely fast that they explode into searing heat.
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Astronauts returning to earth from the international space station do not gently glide down to a runway but rather plummet through the atmosphere inside a…
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Reentering Earth looks peaceful from outside—a glowing streak lines the sky—but for the shuttle, it was like diving into a furnace ten times hotter than…
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Having an itch on your nose while wearing a pressurized bubble is pure torture. Engineers brilliant enough to land humans on another celestial body duct-taped…
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Russian cosmonaut Sergei Krikalev spent a total of 803 days in space over his career, meaning he actually time-traveled by a fraction of a second into the…
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Rockets simply can't carry enough heavy fuel to reach the outer solar system. Instead, scientists perform interplanetary theft. By flying a probe dangerously…
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Instead of burning propellants, satellites can literally throw each other. By connecting two masses with an incredibly long cable and spinning them, momentum…
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