So not all of these reasons are necessarily meant to show the invincibility of NASA. In fact, some of them will show its humanity. They lose stuff, they use the wrong measurement system and make otherwise silly errors. But in spite of that, they managed to get humans to the moon with a computer as powerful as your modern toaster. These are 25 Fun Facts About NASA You Might Not Know.
25
The Vehicle Assembly Building is so big that it has its own weather. If it weren't for one of the world's most massive air conditioning systems, the Florida humidity would cause rain clouds to form near the ceiling.
24
Just in case life is found on some other planet, NASA actually has an Office of Planetary Protection
23
NASA was sued by three men from Yemen for trespassing on Mars. They claimed that they had inherited the planet from their ancestors thousands of years ago.
22
In 2006 NASA admitted to having accidentally recorded over the original tapes of the moon landing. Fortunately NASA wasn't the only group recording. Copies found at CBS and Johnson Space Center are currently being restored.
21
Bill Nye the Science Guy originally wanted to be an astronaut, but NASA kept rejecting him.
20
Gregory Nemitz and his company Orbital Development apparently laid claim to asteroid 433 Eros. The spaceship NEAR Shoemaker landed on the asteroid in 2001 and Gregory subsequently issued NASA a parking ticket for $20.
19
NASA will pay you to lay in bed for months at a time so they can study the effects of prolonged weightlessness
18
In 1991 NASA discovered a small body near Earth that is now listed in their Astrophysics Data System as a possible alien probe.
17
NASA will send you a text message whenever the International Space Station passes over your location
16
As part of its staff training, NASA will show the movie Armageddon and asks the trainees to identify as many scientific inaccuracies as they can.
15
Lonnie Johnson, the man who invented the Super Soaker was a NASA scientist. He also helped develop the Stealth Bomber.
14
According to polls, most Americans think that NASA funding accounts for roughly 20% of the national budget. In reality NASA receives $0.005 cents of every dollar.
13
The toaster in your kitchen contains a more powerful computer than the one used by NASA to send astronauts to the moon. It only had 64Kbyte of memory and operated at 0.043MHz.
12
The area code for Kennedy Space Center and its surrounding regions is 321 (imitating the countdown before liftoff)
11
In 2006 NASA scientists discovered a strange noise in deep space that was several times louder than anything they would expect. To this day they do not know what it was and it has been dubbed the "Space Roar".
10
In 1979 when Skylab crashed in Australia upon reentry, NASA was fined $400 by the Australian government for littering. It was just recently paid.
9
To be officially considered an astronaut by NASA you must travel at least 50 miles above the surface of the Earth.
8
In 1999 NASA lost an orbiter because half of the engineers were using metric measurements and the other half were using imperial measurements.
7
Cape Canaveral in Florida was chosen as a launch site because its proximity to the equator gives it more linear velocity than any other location in the United States.
6
This way, if NASA launches its rockets eastward they can take advantage of the Earth's rotation.
5
It is also desirable to have the downrange area be sparsely populated in case of accidents. The Atlantic Ocean is ideal for this.
4
NASA estimates that the value of minerals in the asteroid belt amounts to about $100 billion for every human on the planet.
3
In 2008 NASA worked with Speedo to create the most drag resistant swimsuit ever. It was so successful that swimmers were actually banned from using it in many competitions.
2
Since the Space Shuttle electronics were so outdated and nobody made them anymore, NASA actually resorted to buying spare parts on websites like eBay
1
NASA's goal is to have humans on Mars by some point in the 2030s
