
Space and Football
There are more connections between space
and football than you may think!
NASA at the Big Game
No matter what team you’re rooting for, NASA technology is helping athletes play the game. Discoveries off the planet have helped develop equipment for the field—from shock-absorbent foam in helmets to retractable stadium roofs.
Explore NASA Technology Transfer and SpinoffFEATURED IMAGE
Comparison of the Size of the International Space Station
The International Space Station measures 357 feet end-to-end. That’s almost equivalent to the length of a football field including the end zones (360 feet).
More Space Station Facts and FiguresDid You Know?

An average NFL game lasts more than three hours. Traveling at 17,500 mph, the crew on the space station will see two sunrises and two sunsets in that time (they see 16 sunrises and sunsets each day).

4,625 footballs can fit inside the crew module of the Orion spacecraft, the exploration vehicle that will carry the Artemis II crew to space.

During the Artemis I mission, the Orion spacecraft traveled a distance of over 26,670,964 football fields when it traveled thousands of miles beyond the Moon.

The crew configuration for NASA's powerful Moon rocket, the Space Launch System, will be 365 feet tall—that's five feet taller than a football field is long!

It would take just over 195 billion footballs, end-to-end, to reach from Earth to Mars at their closest distances. It would take 1.4 trillion when Mars is farther away.

If you threw a football to the Moon at 60 mph, the average speed of an NFL pass, it would take 3,982 hours, or 166 days, to get there. NASA's New Horizons probe holds the record for the fastest uncrewed trip to the Moon, taking 8 hours and 35 minutes.