21 November marks the international day of the Guinness Book of World Records, one of the most popular reference books in history. It contains information about record-breaking achievements of mankind, natural phenomena and unique events, including space events. At the same time, we can talk about both serious scientific breakthroughs and curiosities and various extravagant acts.
In honor of Guinness World Records Day, the editorial staff of Universe Space Tech has prepared a selection of ten space records, which can be found on its official website. To better match the spirit of the publication, we chose both serious and and just interesting achievements.
The first dinosaur in space
The first dinosaur to visit space was Maiasaura, a duck-billed dinosaur of the Hadrosauridae family that lived in Montana at the end of the Cretaceous period. It failed to fly into space during its lifetime, but on 29 July 1985 (some 76 million years after its death) several bones were taken into orbit by Montana-born astronaut Loren Acton. They were not taken into space for any particular scientific reason. The Maiasaura bones were a kind of reminder of home, kept in the astronaut’s personal bag.
The most distant image of the Earth
The most distant image of the Earth was taken on 14 February 1990 by Voyager 1. It was 6.5 billion kilometers away at the time it was taken. This is more than the distance from the Sun to Pluto. In the image, the Earth appeared as a pale blue dot. It is now considered one of the most iconic photographs in history.
The lunar speed record
On 13 December 1972, NASA astronauts Eugene Cernan (driver) and Harrison Schmitt (passenger) accelerated a lunar vehicle to a speed of 18 km/h. To this day, this achievement remains the record for travelling speed on the surface of another heavenly body. By comparison, the land speed record set in 1997 is 1,228 km/h.
It is worth noting, that the lunar vehicles were designed for a cruising speed of only 8 km/h (but their speedometer scale could show up to 20 km/h). Cernan and Schmitt’s record was due to the fact that they were travelling down a slope with a heavy load of lunar rocks.
The fastest marathon into space
The title of the fastest space marathon runner belongs to ESA astronaut Tim Peake. On 24 April 2016, while on the ISS, he ran the London Digital Marathon in 3 hours 35 minutes and 21 seconds. The record of the fastest marathon in orbit among women belongs to NASA astronaut Sunita Williams, who ran it on 16 April 2007 in 4 hours and 24 minutes.
The longest running vehicle on Mars
The record for the longest time on Mars belongs to the Opportunity rover. It landed on the Red Planet on 25 January 2004, its last transmission was received on Earth on 10 June 2018. Thus, Opportunity worked for 14 years and 136 days.
The largest room in space
The largest single habitable room launched into space was the Skylab orbital station. It was launched by NASA on 14 May 1973. The main body of Skylab consisted of a converted third stage of the Saturn V launch vehicle. It had a total internal volume of 238.3 m3 and a habitable volume of 173 m3.
The longest astronaut career
John Young was selected for NASA’s astronaut corps in September 1962. He flew six space missions and operated four different spacecraft (Gemini, the Apollo command and lunar module, and the shuttle). Young remained in astronaut status for 42 years until his retirement in December 2004.
The greatest number of people in outer space
The main objective of the STS-49 mission in May 1992 was to repair the Intelsat VI geostationary satellite, which was stuck in Earth orbit. The operation was very complex and required several unscheduled spacewalks. The last of these involved astronauts Pierre Thuot, Richard Hieb and Thomas Akers, while commander Daniel Brandenstein carefully maneuvered the shuttle Endeavour to within a couple of meters of the damaged satellite. To this day, it is the only time in history that three people have entered space at the same time.
The oldest satellite
The oldest man-made object in space is the Vanguard 1 satellite, which was launched on 17 March 1958. Although the craft has long been out of service, it is still in Earth orbit. This makes Vanguard 1 not only the oldest satellite, but also the oldest piece of space debris.
The tallest and shortest astronauts
The title of the tallest man in space belongs to two American astronauts: James Wetherbee and James Van Hoften, who are 193 cm tall. Van Hoften made two flights between 1984 and 1985, and Wetherbee made six flights between 1990 and 2002.
The longer astronauts stay in weightlessness, the progressively taller they become. So although they were the same height on Earth, in space, Wetherbee, whose longest mission lasted almost 14 days, would have a slight advantage over van Hoften, whose longest mission lasted only six days.
The shortest person in space is American astronaut Nancy Currie. She is only 152 centimetres tall. Currie flew into space four times between 1993 and 2002, taking part in assembling the ISS and repairing the Hubble telescope.
