Curated playlist
NASA programs
- Apollo programApollo 13's crew got home by using their lunar module as a lifeboat after a tank exploded.
- Mariner programMariner 2 flew past Venus without a camera and still found its surface was extremely hot.
- Voyager programNASA canceled the Grand Tour of the outer planets in December 1971. A scaled-down plan became the Voyager program.
- Viking programViking's Mars life tests gave one yes and two no answers. The question remains unresolved.
- Mars Exploration RoverOpportunity, a Mars rover built to drive 600 meters, ended up covering more than 45 km. It lasted nearly fifteen years.
- Pioneer programPioneer 10 and 11 were the first of only five human-made objects to leave the Solar System.
- Ranger programThe Ranger program was a series of uncrewed United States space missions in the 1960s, built for one purpose. Its goal was to take the first close-up pictures of the surface of the Moon. Each Ranger spacecraft was designed for a one-way…
- Nancy Grace Roman Space TelescopeA camera of 300.8 megapixels sits at the center of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Its images match the sharpness of the Hubble Space Telescope, yet each one covers a patch of sky 100 times larger than Hubble's imaging cameras can…
- Space Launch SystemNASA's Space Launch System slipped its first launch date more than twenty-six times.
- Space Shuttle programNASA first pitched the Space Shuttle to the public as a "Space Truck." It was built for 10 years but flew for 30.
- Surveyor programNobody on Earth knew how deep the Moon's dust was in 1966. Seven Surveyor probes went to find out.
- NERVANERVA, a nuclear rocket engine, was certified for Mars in 1968 and never flew. NASA ended the program in January 1973.
- Lunar Orbiter programThe Lunar Orbiter program sent five uncrewed spacecraft around the Moon in 1966 and 1967, and every one of them succeeded. The United States launched them to map the Moon's surface, so that NASA could choose landing sites for Apollo. Along…
- Artemis programArtemis I splashed down exactly 50 years after Apollo 17's last Moon landing. No crew was aboard.
- Commercial Lunar Payload ServicesNASA's Commercial Lunar Payload Services program builds no spacecraft. It buys Moon rides from private firms.
- Lunar GatewayBuzz Aldrin called the Lunar Gateway moon station idea "absurd." NASA developed the project for years anyway.
- Spacecraft propulsionIon engines are roughly ten times as efficient as chemical rockets. Their push is a fraction of a newton.
- Pegasus (satellite)NASA launched satellites in 1965 just to let space rocks hit them. The Pegasus wings spanned 96 feet.
- Lunar Reconnaissance OrbiterThe Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter carries roughly 1.6 million names on a microchip.
- James Webb Space TelescopeThe James Webb Space Telescope set off for orbit with 344 potential single-point failures. Each one was a task with no alternative and no way to recover, so every one had to work. An independent review board counted them in 2018. The…
- Europa ClipperEuropa Clipper is the largest interplanetary spacecraft NASA has ever launched, and its destination is a moon of Jupiter. The probe is making a voyage of 2.9 billion kilometers, or 1.8 billion miles. Its target, Europa, is one of the four…