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The Apollo 12 crew brought back Surveyor 3’s camera after 31 months on the Moon, and NASA reported finding live Streptococcus bacteria inside it, but later evidence pointed to contamination in Houston

In November 1969, Apollo 12 astronauts retrieved the television camera from Surveyor 3 after 31 months on the lunar surface. When NASA opened it in Houston, technicians reported finding live Streptococcus mitis inside the foam — a claim later challenged, but one that reshaped how spacecraft are built.

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Astronauts returning from long stays on the International Space Station can come home up to 3 percent taller as their spines lengthen in microgravity, and the extra height disappears within a few months back on Earth

Astronauts on six-month ISS missions come home up to 3 percent taller as their spinal discs expand without gravity's compression — a temporary stretch that quietly reverses within months, often bringing back pain in its wake.

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How does a moon in the outer solar system run an Earth-like weather cycle with rain, rivers, and seasonal lakes, using liquid methane instead of water at temperatures near minus 180 degrees Celsius?

Saturn's moon Titan is the only other body in the solar system with a working weather cycle on its surface — rain, rivers, and seasonal lakes made of liquid methane at minus 179 degrees Celsius. Here's how the machinery works, and why its rivers refuse to build deltas.

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In 1928, Alexander Fleming came back from a summer holiday to find a stray mould had drifted onto a Staphylococcus plate in his cluttered London lab, and the clear ring of dead bacteria around it became the accidental beginning of the antibiotic era

In September 1928, a contaminated petri dish in a cluttered London lab produced the halo of dead bacteria that launched the antibiotic era — and the story of how Alexander Fleming's messy bench changed medicine is stranger than the schoolbook version.

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Launch campaigns, mission countdowns, launch providers, orbital operations, and the infrastructure that turns spacecraft plans into flight.

About Space Travel

The future of travel beyond Earth.

Space Travel is an independent publication covering human spaceflight, commercial missions, rocket technology, launch operations, and the engineering driving the future of exploration. The site pairs a deep archive with current reporting on the agencies, companies, research programs, and technical breakthroughs shaping how people and payloads move beyond Earth. We employ modern AI technologies to support our editorial workflows; every published piece is editorially directed and reviewed.

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