NASA is one of the most important organizations in the United States, but there are lots of secrets that they don’t want getting out. A single tweet or statement from NASA can easily flip our understanding of the world upside down, so it makes sense that they’re cautious.
But NASA has done some pretty shady things in the past that they would rather we forget. Well documented things, too, such as working with the Soviet Union when they were the US's biggest enemy during the Cold War, working with the enemy, and more.
The motto of NASA is “For the benefit of all,” but this doesn’t seem entirely true. If it doesn’t benefit NASA—or worse, hurts them—then we might as well forget about it, as far as NASA is concerned.
Here are 18 unsettling things that NASA doesn’t want us to know.
18 Astronauts Don’t Have Life Insurance
This is pretty morbid, and it probably has to do with the high-risk situations that astronauts are always in, but until 2003, astronauts that were being sent off to far-away missions did not have life insurance from NASA.
Prior to Apollo 11, Neil Armstrong’s team actually signed autographs to their relatives so that if something happened to him, they’d have something of value to sell.
17 They Recruited Enemy Scientists (Operation Paperclip)
One dark secret that NASA would prefer to be kept in the dark took place during World War II. The United States recruited more than 1,600 Nazi scientists in institutes like NASA, in order to increase their payroll.
The code name the US used to bring in the scientists was known as Operation Paperclip, which was an operation where the Joint Intelligence Objectives Agency (JIOA) brought in Wernher von Braun and his V-2 rocket team, and more.
16 The Repercussions Of Suffering A Fit Of Madness In Space
NASA is usually prepared for anything that could go wrong, especially in space. For astronauts who just can’t handle the pressure or otherworldliness of space travel, NASA has formal procedures which are pretty barbaric.
If an astronaut suffers a fit of madness, companions must immobilize his arms and feet with tape, then inject him with a tranquilizer, to make sure no harm comes to anyone else on board.
15 Astronauts Drink Their Urine
This isn’t just an urban legend. Even though it seems very unhygienic, that really isn’t what’s going on here. NASA has developed a process of recycling urine and converting it into drinkable water at space stations.
The Russians were known to refuse to drink this recycled water, but the Americans had no problem drinking the recycled urine of their former adversaries during the Cold War.
14 The Mysteries Of Apollo 11
On July 20, 1969, the USA made history by landing the first astronauts on the moon, thus winning the space race with the Soviets. Of course, there have been plenty of conspiracy theories that it was all staged.
It doesn’t help that the video that showed Apollo 11 landing on the moon disappeared without a trace. And with all that being said, the Soviets were actually the first ones to send a satellite to the moon.
13 Damaging Precious Moon Stones
This might sound innocuous, but it’s pretty heavy-duty. Thad Roberts was a scientist that NASA wants forgotten, because he’s now spending eight years in prison for stealing 600 pounds of lunar rocks from the space agency, and then proceeding to have intercourse on top of the precious samples with his girlfriend.
The bodily fluids ruined the samples, which were valued at 21 million dollars!
12 Cooperating With The Soviet Union
Even though the space race was huge news during the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union actually cooperated on some things. There was overt hostility and mistrust between the two nations between 1957 and 1991.
But the Apollo-Soyuz Test Project, conducted in 1975, was the first joint US-Soviet space flight, as a symbol of détente—the easing of strained relations—that the nations were pursuing at the time.
11 Warp Drive
NASA has secretly been working on “warp drive” technology for years. It’s not just something you see in Star Trek and Star Wars and the like—the science fiction idea could become possible in the near future.
In 2015, it came to light on a forum that NASA had found a way of accelerating beyond the speed of light. This was when the EM drive team shot lasers through a resonance chamber that traveled over 300 million meters a second. The team working on it doesn’t know how it happened.
10 Life On Mars
This seems highly speculative, but in 2014, a woman said that she had worked on the Viking Mars Rover project in 1979, and while working on the telemetry, two humanoid figures wearing thin protective space suits approached her.
After going to tell someone, she came back and the room was locked and it was covered up. NASA never commented about the finding, so it’s best to take this one with a grain of salt.
9 The X-37B Secret Space Shuttle
This doesn’t involve NASA, specifically, but it’s still in their wheelhouse. The Air Force has had a secret space shuttle in orbit for two years, but no one has an idea what it is for and what it’s been doing. The X-37B has done missions since 2010, after it was developed in 998 and passed on to DARPA.
It was said it was used for reconnaissance, but who really knows? Space Force, perhaps?
8 Weaponized Telescopes
We all know about the Hubble telescope, but did you know about the James Webb Telescope? It’s a project from NASA that launched in 2018, and it has 100 times the power of the Hubble.
Scientists can see the edge of the universe with it, which had previously been undetected, and some even think that it could be used as a weapon and used to spy on people on Earth! Death Star, here we come!
7 China Is Winning The Solar Space Race
Though the US would never admit it, reports claim that China is at the forefront of solar power technology in space. The solar power can collect energy 24 hours a day, all year long, and space solar farms would be located in geosynchronous orbit, 22,000 miles above sea level.
China plans on putting a commercial-scale solar power station in orbit by 2050, and then they’d have bragging rights to be able to harness the sun’s energy in space and beam it down to Earth.
6 Secret Missions In Africa
There’s a lot of mystery surrounding NASA’s secret missions in Africa. A few years ago, NASA confirmed that one of the agency’s aircraft had been spotted on an American military airstrip in eastern Africa.
NASA officials declined to give specific details, but there’s been speculation that the presence maybe for future military activity—possibly counter-terrorism, ground relief, or even in preparation for war.
5 NASA Is Vulnerable To Hacking
You’d think that one of the most important departments in the US—with some of the craziest secrets—would be well protected from hackers, but the opposite is true.
Even though it’s one of the most technologically advanced organizations on Earth, the agency has suffered from hackers and had data stolen, secrets and missions have been hijacked, and in 2001, a British man broke into NASA’s secret files and left them a note telling them that their security was rubbish.
4 Livestreaming UFOs
There have been rumors for a long time that NASA knows about UFOs and aliens and is just hiding the knowledge from us. Sometimes it’s said that NASA has streamed UFOs live, thanks to the webcam on the International Space Station.
In several instances, UFOs have gone past the camera and each time NASA has cut the feed—whether it’s because they’re running secret operations or hiding aliens from us, we don’t know. But Ufologists have been having a field day with it.
3 The Challenger Cover-Up
In 1986, the worst space shuttle disaster happened, when the Challenger aircraft exploded in mid-flight. NASA said the crew was unconscious during the explosion due to the cabin pressure, but it’s been revealed that they might have been awake and knew they were going to explode.
The Rogers Commission revealed that NASA had not taken precautions against catastrophic failure. It was also said that NASA had been considering postponing the launch until after they received some advice from engineers.
2 NASA Chief Explains The Need For A Space Force
NASA usually tries not to get too political, but that’s not always the case. Last year when they called for a “space force” to be the sixth branch of the military in the US, NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine explained the need for America’s dominance on the final frontier.
He said space has become very dangerous, and the government needs commercial partners willing to invest their money in order to make the US the preeminent nation in space.
1 Won’t Admit It’s Wrong About Asteroids
Maverick inventor and ex-Microsoft exec Nathan Myhrvold has been fighting with NASA for the last couple of years about the analysis of near-Earth asteroid sizes. His 33-page scientific paper criticizes the methods used to estimate the size of 164,000 asteroids.
This could be dangerous because a major asteroid will heavily impact life on Earth, at some point, just like it has in the past, and data is critical to assessing the risk. For instance, he says, “if there is a mistake by a factor of two in diameter, that’s a mistake of a factor of eight in energy” (via theguardian.com).
References: theguardian.com, nasa.com, foreignpolicy.com, abcnews.com, cbsnews.com