Prairie STEM

We Love all the excitement for STEM and the space program that we have been seeing since the Artimis program started!! Thanks STEM-apalooza for sharing this awesome graphic!

𝗔 𝟱𝟰-𝗬𝗲𝗮𝗿 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗽 𝗶𝗻 𝗦𝗽𝗮𝗰𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CBxYAPY8G/?mibextid=wwXIfr

Thanks to Sky&Earth for this timely infographic!

🚀 SAME SHAPE. 54 YEARS APART. COMPLETELY DIFFERENT WORLDS INSIDE. 🌕

The Apollo Command Module and Orion Crew Module look almost identical from the outside.
The laws of aerodynamics have not changed. The cone shape that survives reentry in 1972 is still the best option in 2026.
But step inside, and it is a different universe.

📐 The Numbers Tell the Story:
Apollo: 6.2 m³ of habitable space for 3 astronauts. That is smaller than a standard bathroom.
Orion: 8.95 m³ for 4 astronauts, a 50% increase, with room for two tiers of activity.
Diameter grew from 3.9 meters to 5.02 meters, a change that sounds modest but transforms the interior completely.

🖥️ The Computer Gap Is Almost Impossible to Grasp:
The Apollo Guidance Computer ran at 2 MHz with 4 KB of memory.
Orion's computers are 200,000 times more powerful.
Apollo astronauts navigated to the Moon with less computing power than a modern calculator.

🚽 The Detail Nobody Talks About:
Apollo had no toilet. For 14 days. Three men. They used bags.
Orion has a dedicated waste management system. A toilet. This sounds trivial. At day 10 of a deep space mission, it is not.

🛡️ The One Thing Both Share: AVCOAT.
Both Apollo and Orion use Avcoat ablative material on their heat shields, the same fundamental chemistry, refined across 54 years.
Some things in physics simply cannot be improved upon. They can only be perfected.

What surprises you most about this 54-year leap?