The other day I was talking to a friend who doesn’t believe in climate change, and I said “Well NASA scientists say…” and related some facts that are presented on NASA’s climate change website, concluding with the joke “and they’re rocket scientists“, to which he replied that he had worked with NASA, and that NASA scientists “fell into three tranches: crazy smart & ambitious 1%, pretty smart but mostly political 15%, and simply political 84%“. To which I replied “yeah, and 77.3% of all statistics mentioned in casual conversation are inaccurate“. I enjoy a good debate, even when no actual facts are involved. In any case, this all got me thinking about rockets, so today, we’re rolling out the rocket science.

The first rocket was probably made by the Chinese around 1000 A.D

The first liquid fuel rocket – which made modern amenities like centennial trips to the moon and the ability to send nuclear bombs all the way around the world – was launched by Robert Goddard on March 16, 1926

The space shuttle Endeavour cost about $386 a pound to build, not including historic R&D expenses, which would make it more like $32,000 a pound.

The most people ever in space at the same time was thirteen. Seven were in Endeavor, three in Mir and three in Soyuz.

Because dust doesn’t settle in zero-gravity, the astronauts aboard the International Space Station may sneeze as often as 100 times a day.

The first man made object to leave our solar system was Pioneer 10. Launched on March 2, 1972, and passed Pluto’s orbit on June 13, 1983. It is now 7 Billion miles away.

To drive 7 Billion miles at 55 miles per hour  would take 14,528 years.