At The Museum of Flight, we saw a real NASA astronaut! Actually, two: Tom Jones was speaking, and Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger was sitting two seats behind me. What an amazing opportunity. We are so lucky to have the Museum of Flight here. Someday I want to go work for NASA.
Some things we learned:
- The space shuttle re-enters the atmosphere at a speed of mach 25, or 25 times the speed of sound
- The spacesuit controls are printed backwards, because astronauts can't look down, they're wearing a helmet, so they use a mirror on their wrist to look at their controls.
- Cancer cells in space grow in 3-D, not flat on a petri dish, so scientists can test cancer medications better
- The shuttle crew has a commander and a pilot, because none of the astronauts wanted to be called the co-pilot.