12 NASA approved houseplants that are good for indoor air quality.
Back in the ’80s, NASA and the Associated Landscape Contractors of America did a study where they discovered which houseplants were the most effective in purifying the air in space facilities. Though you may not be living in a rocket ship, you can definitely benefit from having one or more of these plants in your home.
All of these indoor plants have been found to filter out common volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which can come from paints, cleaning supplies, pesticides, building materials, furnishings, and other common household products.
Take note that some plants are easier to care for than others, and you should fully research the plant before taking them home, as some plants (such as the heartleaf philodoendron) can be toxic for pets or small children if accidentally consumed.
The first high-altitude “space suits” were less technocratic achievements than feats of adaptation. In 1934 such a hand-formed “tire shaped like a man” brought aviator Wiley Post to the limits of the stratosphere.
“How To get to Mars” is a clip from the IMAX documentary “Roving Mars” from 2006. This is an edited short version.
From Wiki : Spirit, MER-A (Mars Exploration Rover — A), is a robotic rover on Mars, active from 2004 to 2010. It was one of two rovers of NASA’s ongoing Mars Exploration Rover Mission. It landed successfully on Mars at 04:35 Ground UTC on January 4, 2004, three weeks before its twin, Opportunity (MER-B), landed on the other side of the planet. Its name was chosen through a NASA-sponsored student essay competition. The rover became stuck in late 2009, and its last communication with Earth was sent on March 22, 2010.
The rover completed its planned 90-sol mission. Aided by cleaning events that resulted in higher power from its solar panels, Spirit went on to function effectively over twenty times longer than NASA planners expected following mission completion. Spirit also logged 7.73 km (4.8 mi) of driving instead of the planned 600 m (0.4 mi), allowing more extensive geological analysis of Martian rocks and planetary surface features. Initial scientific results from the first phase of the mission (the 90-sol prime mission) were published in a special issue of the journal Science.
On May 1, 2009 (5 years, 3 months, 27 Earth days after landing; 21.6 times the planned mission duration), Spirit became stuck in soft soil. This was not the first of the mission’s “embedding events” and for the following eight months NASA carefully analyzed the situation, running Earth-based theoretical and practical simulations, and finally programming the rover to make extrication drives in an attempt to free itself. These efforts continued until January 26, 2010 when NASA officials announced that the rover was likely irrecoverably obstructed by its location in soft soil, though it continued to perform scientific research from its current location.
The rover continued in a stationary science platform role until communication with Spirit stopped on sol 2210 (March 22, 2010). JPL continued to attempt to regain contact until May 24, 2011, when NASA announced that efforts to communicate with the unresponsive rover had ended. A formal farewell was planned at NASA headquarters after the Memorial Day holiday and was televised on NASA TV.
About 1966 or so, a NASA team doing work for the Apollo moon mission took the astronauts near Tuba City where the terrain of the Navajo Reservation looks very much like the Lunar surface.
Along with all the trucks and large vehicles, there were two large figures dressed in full Lunar spacesuits.
Nearby a Navajo sheep herder and his son were watching the strange creatures walk about, occasionally being tended by personnel. The two Navajo people were noticed and approached by the NASA personnel. Since the man did not know English, his son asked for him what the strange creatures were and the NASA people told them that they are just men that are getting ready to go to the moon. The man became very excited and asked if he could send a message to the moon with the astronauts.
The NASA personnel thought this was a great idea so they rustled up a tape recorder. After the man gave them his message, they asked his son to translate. His son would not.
Later, they tried a few more people on the reservation to translate and every person they asked would chuckle and then refuse to translate. Finally, with cash in hand, someone translated the message, “Watch out for these guys, they come to take your land.”
NASA sends an Obama voter and a chimpanzee to the moon.
When the rocket lands on the moon’s surface, the computer screen automatically switches itself on and the chimpanzee clicks on the desktop file that contains his instructions:
1) Ensure that rocket has landed at the correct co-ordinates and is anchored safely. 2) Check ALL life support systems. 3) Prepare laboratory for analyzing samples. 4) Put on space suit, step outside of rocket on to the surface, collect soil and rock samples, return to laboratory, conduct tests on samples and report back to Houston giving us your “best guess” as to whether or not the Moon is adequate for terraforming.
The chimp clicks out of his file and runs off to do his duties.
The Obama voter then sits in front of the computer and clicks on his file:
