During our Space Night, you’ll eventually find yourself in an area with tools that allow you to look at the beautiful night sky. Each station has its own set of binoculars, Dobsonian telescope, and either a Celestron or Meade telescope mounted on an electric motor. But in the center of the telescope area sits another
Read moreHow We Landed on the Moon
Since 1966, NASA has been landing the unmanned Surveyor probes onto the surface of the moon to collect data. In December 1968, NASA managed to get a manned spacecraft into lunar orbit with the Apollo 8 mission. The next goal to accomplish was to combine these feats in order to land a crewed spaceship onto
Read moreHow We Got to the Moon
During the 1960s, NASA had the daunting task of landing a person on the moon. When John F. Kennedy announced the goal to put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, they had only recently sent Alan Shepard into space for the first time. It would be another nine months before
Read moreHow We Got to Orbit
Getting to space is not a difficult task, but staying in space is an entirely different challenge. At the altitude of the International Space Station — 250 miles — a spacecraft must have a horizontal velocity of about 5 miles per second. That’s roughly 17,000 mph. As the mass of the object or vehicle being
Read moreThe Moon Phases
We can’t take our eyes off it, it helps control our tides, and wolves howl at it; can you name what “it” is? You probably guessed correctly, it’s Luna, also known as the moon! The moon is the largest satellite of Earth, and one of the only natural satellites. This means that there may be other
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