In perhaps an unintended degree of verisimilitude to the actual shuttle launch experience, a lot of the time on the Shuttle Launch Experience ride is spent waiting. As you wait on the gantry, monitors show a video where former astronauts describe what it was like for them to fly on the shuttle.
The galaxy we live in, called the Milky Way Galaxy, is a barred spiral galaxy composed of at least 100 billion stars. It is approximately 100,000 light years across and about 1000 light years thick. It has a central bulge that is about 10,000 light years in diameter.
How many stars are there in our Galaxy (Milky Way)? I am confused about the number of stars in our Milky Way galaxy. Some sources say that the Milky Way consists of 100 billion stars. Other say that the MASS of our galaxy is roughly 100 billion times the mass of the Sun. So because most of the galaxy mass is in the interstellar gaseous and dust nebulae there must be less than a 100 billion stars in it or the total mass must be greater.