What if NASA offered you a chance to go to Mars? Would you go?

DO YOU WANT TO GO TO MARS?
A lot of people, including myself, really love outer space. But, do you really want to go there? Probably not!

If NASA called you and gave you the chance to be one of only a dozen people to go on the first trip to Mars, would you go?
It sounds cool. I have always wanted to go to outer space. That would be so awesome to spend one day in space. If, it only took a few hours to get to Mars, that would be cool to.
But, be careful what you wish for, because, you might get your wish!
On the space station, they recycle water. In other words, the water they use to flush the toilet gets filtered and cleaned. Then it goes back into a tank and the Astronauts drink that water! Then, they pee it out into the toilet, it gets filtered again, goes back into the holding tank and repeats the process over and over again! Yuck!
They lose muscle mass, because, in almost 0 gravity, you don't get to work your muscles very much. They have to exercise 2 hours a day to prevent muscle loss.
Food doesn't taste the same in space as it does on Earth.
What would you do if you can out of food or if the food you have with you spoiled or rotted and it was no longer safe to eat? The nearest grocery store is about 35,000 miles away, on Earth.
It is a very small space on a rocket, space shuttle or the ISS. It would get boring up there in those cramped quarters. If there is someone up there with you that you don't get along with, that would suck for you! It will take about 5 or 6 months to get to Mars with today's technology. You'll be on the planet for probably 6 months to a year, then a 6 month long trip back to Earth. All that time, you'd be with someone you hate!
The closest Doctor to you will be on Earth! If you get sick or injured, you are on your own. You will be able to call the Doctor on Earth and talk to him, but, he can't give you any prescription medication, stitch up a wound, put a cast on a broken bone, perform surgery or anything like that!
Mars is much smaller than Earth. That means there will be less gravity. That will have an affect on your weight, the amount of pressure and stress on your Spine, how you walk and other things. Astronauts have no stress on their spine on the International Space Station. In fact, while their in space, their spine stretches out and the Astronauts are about an inch or two taller in space. After 6 months, they come back to Earth and the Earth's gravity pulls their spine down and puts stress on it again. That causes back pain.
There are a lot of dust storms up there. The wind blows the Red, Iron Oxide all around and it will be hard to see. The wind might even blow you around as well. You will be much lighter on Mars than on Earth.
(The surface of the planet is made up of Iron Oxide, which is basically rust from iron, just like on a car. That's what gives Mars it's red color.)
You'll have to wear a space suit everywhere you go. You might get a hole in your suit, which you can't just fix with duct tape. You could also run out of Oxygen or have problems with your O2 tank. Either one of those things: a hole in your suit or problems with your Oxygen, would be life threatening.
It is very cold and dusty up there on Mars. The atmosphere doesn't stop Metiors or harmful UV Ray's, Gamma Ray's, X Ray's, and other harmful things from space as well as the Earth's atmosphere does.
If your space ship breaks down, there's no one there to fix it and no way for it to be fixed. You would never make it back home to Earth.
I am sure you'd have to sign a waiver before you went to Mars, saying you know all the risks you're taking and if anything happens to you your family can't sue!
On the bright side, you would die famous. You would always be known as one of the first people to ever land on Mars. NASA would probably name a satellite after you, your birthday might become a national holiday, people would write books and movies about you and your name would be as famous as Neil Armstrong, Galileo, Stephen Hawking and Edwin Hubble.

LIGHTNING TRIVIA:

Lightning can strike up to 20 Miles away from a thunderstorm.
When you see Lightning in the distance on a hot day, but, you don't hear thunder, that's because, there is a storm a long ways away. Too far for you to see the rain clouds or hear the thunder. This makes it look like the lighting is being caused by the heat. People often think it is the heat that is causing the lighting. It's often referred to as "Heat Lightning". But, Heat Lightning does not exist. It is regular lightning from a storm that's too far away for you to see the rain or hear the thunder.
Lightning strikes the Earth between 50 and 100 times per second! Astronauts have confirmed that as fact, because they can see the clouds light up in several different places around the world, all at the same time. They can see it from the space station.
Lightning can travel in all directions, most Lightning is cloud to cloud lightning and it doesn't hit the ground. On the ground it can travel straight down, up, or sideways. According to the Discovery Channel and some high speed video footage of lightning strikes, which you can see on YouTube, most Lightning travels from the ground up, NOT down from the clouds!
Lightning has between 1 Million and 1 Billion Volts.
In the movie: Back To The Future, they use the the word: "Jigowatt". There is no such thing as a Jigowatt. The actors mispronounced the word: "Gigawatt". Just like the computer term, Gigabyte- 1 Billion bytes, a Gigawatt is 1 Billion Watts.
When people get struck by lightning, they usually don't get hit directly by the bolt, usually, the lighting hits something else, if someone is touching the object that got hit, they get zapped. It can also "splash", or bounce off something it hits and hit someone. Sometimes, it hits the wet ground several feet away and if a person is standing on the ground near the strikes, electricity travels across the wet ground and hits them.
The record for the most times being struck by lightning lightning is 7 times! It was a park ranger. He lived to tell about it! However, he had Psychological and physical health problems after being struck that many times.
The lighting capital of the word as of 2016, according to NASA.gov, is: Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela. They get an avg of 233 lightning strikes per square Km every year.
Before NASA researched this, The Congo Basin in Africa held the record for the most Lightning activity each year.
NASA conducted their research with: "The Lighting Image Sensor" (LIS) on the Tropical Rainfall Measurement Mission.
The lighting capital of the US is Tampa, FL. They have more Lightning than any US city. The word Tampa comes from the Clausa Tribe in the 16th century. The word Tampa means: "Sticks of Fire".
The Lighting Belt is an area of FL that extends from Tampa to Orlando and from Orlando down to Ft Myers and Lake Okeechobee. That  area of FL gets the most Lightning each year.
Lightning can generate heat up to 60,000 degrees F. That's 6 times hotter than the surface of the Sun!
Lightning kills more people than Hurricanes and Tornadoes combined every year.
NASA is not supposed to launch rockets through clouds, because, that could trigger lightning. However, I have seen them do it and the rockets did not cause lightning. Not the ones I saw.
Most commercial airplanes get struck by lightning at least once or more every year. Because of all the safety features on airplanes  to protect the plane and passengers from lightning, most people don't even know that the airplane was struck by lightning. In fact, planes can even trigger lightning.
Experts say that if lightning hits your car while you're in it, you should be safe. The force of the lighting will be absorbed by the outer frame of the car and you, theoretically, should not be affected by it. Unless you stick your arm out the window and touch something else that is touching the ground, then you'll get fried.
Lightning can be produced by other things besides rain, Tornadoes, Hurricanes, volcanic eruptions, rockets and sometimes even a huge fire, which can also cause a fire tornado. That is a whirlwind caused by a fire. It sucks up the flame. Now the tornado is spinning around and it is actually spinning a flame around with it! Making it even more dangerous.l
Some other planets have storms on them and some of them also produce lightning. Jupiter has some of the most violent storms  in the Solar system. According to NASA, Lightning on Jupiter is much more powerful than what we experience on Earth.
(Most of this information comes from: Discovery Channel, NASA.gov, Orlandosentinel.com and Scientificamerican.com.)

New to Blogging.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

New to blogging. Hello everyone.
My name is David. I am originally from Michigan. I got tired of the cold weather so I moved to Florida. I now live in Cocoa, FL.I was in the US Army for Seven years. I was stationed in Ft. Hood, TX and Mannheim, Germany. I also served one year in Iraq. I was a Truck Driver in the Army. Some of my biggest interests include: Cats, telling jokes, writing and Astronomy.