Things You Might Not Know About Spaceflight

Humans and their creations have been going to space for a while. Satellites have been in space for about as long as we’ve used passenger planes, and humans themselves have been in space for more than 60 years. And in that time, we’ve experienced many setbacks. While you may have heard about launch failures, explosions, and crashes, here are two things you never would have expected to be problems when going to space.

               Getting to… the launch pad?

               As far as things being difficult to work with, rockets take the cake. They’re extremely large, very fragile, unimaginably heavy, and incredibly expensive. With all of those things taken into consideration, rockets need to be constructed in an extremely controlled, purpose-built, facility. For rockets launched in the United States, that entails the Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center. At just under 130 million cubic feet, the VAB is the eighth largest building in the world by volume and the tallest one story building in the world. It was purpose built to assemble the gargantuan Saturn V, and ever since, it has been used to assemble Space Shuttles and more. But even getting a rocket from the VAB to the launch pad is a challenge. One for which NASA specially commissioned two $120 million tracked crawlers weighing in at 6 million pounds each. They travel at 1 mile per hour with an astonishing fuel economy of 0.008 miles per gallon. Who could’ve thought that getting to the launch pad could take so much?

               Staying warm, or cold, I think?

               Many people think that space is cold, and indeed it is… by some measure. The reality is not that space is cold or hot, but that there isn’t a lot there. Apart from the occasional gas molecule thrown out by a planetary collision, there isn’t much to bump into. But there is always heat being generated by power systems running, the inefficiency in machinery, and, of course, the Sun! So really the problem in space is not staying warm, but actually keeping cool. Alongside Solar Panels, for example, the ISS and many spacecraft have radiator panels designed to radiate heat out into space, as this is the only way to transfer heat in space. Convection and conduction are impossible since there is no direct contact with any matter outside of the craft. Similarly, many space craft utilize aluminium, silver, copper, or most commonly gold foil to reflect radiation away from the spacecraft.