SPACE TRAVEL
REACHING FOR
THE STARS
By Brennan
Ison
THE BEGINNING OF SPACE
TRAVEL
You may think that space travel has always been
around. Well, the concept started back
to the time of Isaac Newton when he was doing calculations of gravity and
inertia. Legend has it, that the first
space man was Wan-Hu, a Chinese adventurer who, in the 16th century
attached 47 rockets to a chair. Once
lit, the rockets produced a cloud of smoke, Wan-Hu was never seen again! Since the time of Wan-Hu, there have been several
advances in space travel. Up to the
point which we are today. You may think
that America invented rocketry. But
actually, it was invented by a Nazi scientist.
Yes! Nazi! His name was Wernher Von Braun. He
developed the first rocket labeled the V2.
This was used by the Nazis as the last ditch effort in WWII. Meanwhile, in America, they had their own
rocket scientist. His name was Robert
Goddard. He was America’s first rocket
scientist. The story goes that American
Robert Goddard felt the urge to fly to space while climbing a tree as a
teenager. 17 years later in 1926, he
launched the first liquid fuel rocket.
With many to follow reaching speeds just below the sound barrier. The rocket was launched in New England and
crashed into a field of cabbages.
The
V2 rocket that Von Braun invented was a missile and it was used by Nazi Germany
against the allies in Britain and France.
Unfortunately the rocket wasn’t very effective and barely hit any
targets. After the war, Werhner Von
Braun and other scientists were captured by the USSR (or the Soviet Union) and
the United States to use in their space programs during the Cold War. These two rockets were considered to be
“Space Bombs”.
The
first V2 rocket entered space in 1944.
Soon after, these bombs were attacking England, France and Belgium. The rockets did indeed strike fear into the
hearts of Hitler’s enemies but were not very effective weapons. Each one killing an average of 2 people.
In the evening of October 4, 1957, a rocket took off from
site Number 1 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in what was then deep in Soviet
territory. Within a few minutes, the
first artificial satellite was in orbit around Earth. The spacecraft was called “Sputnik 1”. This is simply the Russian word for Satellite. It might also be translated as companion or
fellow traveler. It weight 176 pounds
and orbited every 90 minutes, 300 miles above the surface. It’s signature sign was beep… beep… beep…
which could be picked up by any amateur radio.
LANDMARKS IN SPACE
EXPLORATION
The first animals in space were fruit flies and they were
launched in 1947. They were launched in
a captured US V2 Rocket. November 3,
1957, soviet dog Laika was the first animal to orbit the earth. Sadly the dog died 6 hours into launch after
overheating.
The first person in space was Yuri Gagarin a soviet
cosmonaut. This was April 12, 1961.
May 5, 1961, Alan Shepard was the first US astronaut to
fly in space. Shepard was in sub-orbit trajectory.
February 20m 1962, John Glenn becomes the first astronaut
to orbit earth.
June 16, 1963, Soviet Cosmonaut, Valentina Tereshkova was
the first woman in space.
December
24, 1968 Apollo 8 becomes the first craft to orbit the moon carrying people.
July 20, 1969, US Astronaut, Neil Armstrong becomes the
first human to walk on the moon.
July 17, 1975, the first time a US and Soviet spacecraft
dock together. Signaling the end of the
Space Race!!
In my opinion, many people see this as a waste of money
while one country tries to beat the other, but we need to look at this from a
different perspective. These programs
were some of the best in America history even though we were enemies back then,
we must look beyond that into a better understanding of ourselves and our
universe.
THE EXPLORATION OF PLANETS
If you have read page 1, you know that space travel was
in its infancy. However, that started a
domino effect which led us to greater and better projects. This page will focus
on our exploration of the solar system and it’s planets.
We start on August 17, 1958. Pioneer 0, aka Thor Able 1 was launched by
the United States, is the first attempted launch beyond earth’s orbit. The mission lasted only 73.6 seconds. Unfortunately the vehicle failed at a maximum
altitude of 16 km.
January
4, 1959, the USSR launches Luna 1, a lunar flyby. It is a partial success. The first spacecraft in the vicinity of the
moon. It contained radio equipment
including a tracking transmitter and a telemetry system and five instruments to
study the moon and interplanetary space.
Pioneer
4 was launched by the USA on March 4, 1959, achieved distant flyby of the moon
and the first US probe to enter solar orbit.
Luna
2 was launched on September 14, 1959 by the USSR. It was the first impact on the moon. On board Luna 2 were 5 different instruments
to conduct various tests while on its way to the moon. A lot of the tests had to do with the Van
Allen radiation belt. The Van Allen
radiation belt is a zone of energetic charged particles captured by the planets
magnetic field.
Luna
3 was launched by the USSR on October 6, 1959.
It was the first probe to have images from the lunar far side. Otherwise known as “The Far Side of the
Moon”, or Dark Side (that makes it sound more ominous).
On May 26, 1951 President John F. Kennedy made a special
announcement to Congress. “I believe
that this nation should commit itself to achieve the goal, before this decade
is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the
earth”. Thus began the Apollo program. The most ambitious space program that America
had ever seen!
The Apollo program ran from 1961 to 1972. Sadly, the first mission was a failure. In 1967 the Apollo I test run caught fire,
killing all the crew inside. It was a
major setback for the program.
On April 14, 1970 Apollo
13 suffered a catastrophic explosion when one of its oxygen tanks exploded
nearly killing all of the crew.
Thankfully, the crew survived and managed to return safely to the earth.
The great success of the Apollo program was on April 20,
1969 with Apollo 11 landing the first man on the moon. That was man Neil Armstrong. His famous words were “That’s one small step
for man. One giant leap for
mankind”. Fun fact… Neil Armstrong
intended to say “That’s one small step for A man. One giant leap for mankind”. You cannot hear this, because there was a
glitch in the transmitting system.
The last flight was Apollo 17 which the mission lasted
from December 7th to the 19th in 1972. This mission was NASA’s last man landing on
the moon. The last man on the moon was
Eugene Cernan.
ROBOTIC PROBE MISSIONS
Lets now look at other planets in the solar system. Starting with Mercury, the first probe being
the Mariner 10 Probe. It arrived in 1974
and flew past the planet 3 times before its fuel ran out.
The Messenger Probe is an orbiter and it was sent to
Mercury on March 18, 2011. It’s mission
is to collect images. It also mapped the
planet Mercury. During its stay in
Mercury’s orbit, Messengers instruments yielded significant data including
characterization of its magnetic field and the discovery of water ice at the
planets north pole. Its mission was
completed on April 30, 2015 by deorbiting the probe.
Now we look to Venus.
The first probe to Venus was Venera 1 on February 12, 1961. Unfortunately the spacecraft had a
communications failure on May 19, 1961.
It’s arrival date is unknown.
In March 1982, a Russian spacecraft called Venera 13
parachuted onto Venus and photographed its surface. The pictures showed an orange desert littered
with broken rocks. Possibly remains of
lava flow. The craft survived for 127
minutes before Venus’ atmosphere destroyed it.
On to Mars. One of the first probes to land on Mars was
Viking 1, launched by the United States in July 20, 1976. It was joined by the Viking 2 lander in
September 3 of 1976.
Mars Pathfinder lands successfully on July 4, 1997. Carrying with it, Sojourner one of the
smallest rovers on Mars. Pathfinders
mission objectives were to prove that the development of faster better and
cheaper spacecraft was possible. Also,
to show that it was possible to send a load of scientific instruments to
another planet with a simple system.
Finally, to demonstrate NASA’s commitment to low cost planetary
exploration.
Spirit and Opportunity await! Spirit, a Mars exploration rover launched on
June 10, 2003. It landed successfully on
January 4, 2004. Unfortunately its
wheels became trapped in sand. The last
communication received from the rover was on March 22, 2010 and communication
was cut on May 25, 2011. Opportunity was
launched on July 7, 2003 and landed successfully on January 23, 2004. Currently it is still active even after all
of this time. The primary mission is to
search for and characterize a variety of rocks and soils that hold clues to
past water activity on Mars.
Finally we have Curiosity. The latest rover on Mars. Curiosity was launched on November 26, 2011
from Cape Canaveral Florida. The spacecraft
landed in Gale Crater on August 6, 2012.
As of May 9, 2017 it has been on Mars for 1,736 days. It’s primary mission is to see if Mars could
have once supported life and to study the climate and geology of Mars which
will help further human exploration on Mars.
Voyagers I & II
The Voyager spacecrafts were two spacecrafts launched in
1977 to explore the outer planets of the solar system, ie, Jupiter, Saturn,
Uranus and Neptune. Voyager I explored
Jupiter and Saturn. Voyager II explored
Uranus and Neptune. Each one of the
Voyagers carries a golden record. It
doubles as a time capsule in the hopes that extra terrestrial life or future
humans will discover it. Voyager I
began photographing Jupiter in January 1979.
It explored the Jovian System, mainly Jupiter and its’ moons Io, Europa
and Ganymede. Voyager encountered
Saturn in November 1980. It also
explored Saturns moon, Titan, along with photographing pictures of Saturn, it’s
rings and moons, Mimas, Tethys, Dione, Rhea and Titan. As we currently speak, Voyager has
interstellar space and will travel for hundreds if not thousands of years until
discovered by any kind of intelligence.
Voyager II did the same thing as Voyager I except it
explored Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune but we will focus on Uranus and
Neptune. The closest approach to Uranus
occurred on January 24, 1986. It
discovered the moons of Uranus. These are Cordelia, Ophelia, Bianca, Cressida,
Juliet, Desdemona, Portia, Rosalind, Belinda, Perdita and Puck. It also examined the Urania Ring System. It discovered Uranus’ sideways rotation. Voyager II’s closest approach to Neptune
occurred on August 25, 1989. It made a
close flyby of Neptune’s moon Triton. The
Voyager probes were originally sent to explore Pluto. But unfortunately the exploration of the
discovery of the gas giant moons prevented the exploration of Pluto.
Cassini probe is a robotic probe sent to study
Saturn. The spacecraft was launched on
October 15, 1997 by NASA. It entered
orbit around Saturn on July 1, 2004. On
December 25, 2004, the Huygens separated from the orbiter and landed on
Saturn’s moon titan on January 14, 2005.
It was the first landing accomplished in the outer solar system and not
one has been made since. To this day it
continues to orbit Saturn. Sadly, on
September 15, 2017 it is planned to deorbit in Saturn’s atmosphere. To avoid contamination on some of Saturn’s
icy moons. Many of which seem to have
life. Just like Jupiters moon, Europa.
The
Juno spacecraft is a probe sent to explore Jupiter. The Juno spacecraft was launched on August 5,
2011. It entered a polar orbit of
Jupiter on July 5, 2016. The scientific
objectives of the Juno spacecraft are determine the ratio of oxygen to hydrogen
in Jupiters atmosphere, obtain a better estimate of Jupiters core mass and
linking Jupiters formation to the solar system, precisely map Jupiters
gravitational field to assess the distribution of Jupiter’s interior, including
properties of its structure and dynamics.
Precisely map Jupiter’s magnetic field, map the variation and
atmospheric composition, temperature, structure, cloud opacity and dynamics to
pressures far greater than 100 bars at all latitudes.
New Horizons is an interplanetary space probe to explore
Pluto and the Kuiper Belt. On January
19, 2006, New Horizons was launched from Cape Canaveral Florida. On January 15, 2015 New Horizon spacecraft
began its approach phase to Pluto. On
July 14, 2015 the spacecraft arrived at Pluto.
It took almost a decade to reach Pluto.
It was currently the fastest spacecraft ever built. The New Horizon spacecraft has maneuvered for
a flyby of a Kuiper Belt object. It is
expected to arrive on January 1, 2019.
SPACE TOURISM
By now you’ve read the articles above and you are
thinking, Man I really want to go to space!
Unfortunately the only way to go to space is an astronaut or a
billionaire. Thankfully in your lifetime
there could be a way for you to get to space.
S P A C E T O U R I S
MMMMMMMM!!! You might think that is in
the future, but no, these are actual companies that are wanting to take your
money and put you in the next frontier.
Many companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic do have ways to get you
into space for low cost. But by normal
standards, the price is outrageous. For
example, Virgin Galactic has Spaceship Two tickets selling for around
$200,000.00. Crazy right?!? Well, there have been concepts to get you to
space and enjoy yourself there.
Companies like Bigelow have attached inflatable module to the
International Space Station to make affordable arrangements at no cost and for
feasible travel to interplanetary voyages such as Mars. It can also be a good spot for you to have
your very own space hotel or rent one.
However, the price will still be very high. Buy hey!!! It’s a space hotel!! Currently only 7 people have been classified
as space tourists. Dennis Tito, Mark
Shuttleworth, Gregory Olsen, Anousheh Ansari, Charles Simonyi, Richard
Garriott, and Guy Laliberte’.
In February 2017, Elon Musk announced that substantial
deposits from two individuals had been received by SpaceX for a moon loop
flight using a free return trajectory.
This could happen as soon as late 2018.
Musk said that the cost of the mission would be about $70 Million US
dollars.
Attitudes Towards Space
Tourism
A web based survey suggested that over 70% of those
surveyed wanted less or equal to two weeks in space ; in addition, 88% wanted
to spacewalk. (only 14% of these would do it for 50% premium), 21% wanted to
stay at a hotel or space station. I
wonder if you could rate these experiences on Yelp or Trip Advisor?
So who wants to travel to space?!?
THE FUTURE OF SPACE TRAVEL
There isn’t much to talk about with what might happen
with the future of space exploration.
However, I have a few ideas of what might happen! We could see a return to the moon and
possibly making a moon base for exploration or tourism. Another reason for building a moon base would
be to mine a special substance called Helium III which would be necessary
create fusion energy to provide unlimited energy to the people of earth.
Something else we could see is asteroid mining. Asteroids already pose a gigantic threat to
the earth. Just remember, the dinosaurs
didn’t have a space program. There are
two benefits of asteroid capturing. One,
we could redirect an asteroid that could pose a direct threat to life on earth
and place the asteroid in low lunar orbit.
Two, mine the asteroid for platinum and other rate metals that will help
make asteroid mining a really rich industry.
Another thing we could see is by the 2030’s we could see man on
Mars. This would be the greatest benefit
in the history of mankind for multiple reasons.
For one, it could be a good refuge for humanity in case of a war or
natural disaster that destroys life on earth.
Two, we could discover if there was ever life on Mars or if there was
liquid water there or if life is still capable of living on Mars. Three, this is a far fetched idea, but we
could terraform the planet. Terraform
involves converting a planet into a second Earth. This is unlikely to ever happen in the near
future. This might happen 10,000 or a
million years from now. Another thing we
could see is missions to the Jovian System ie, Jupiter and it’s moons. Preferably Europa. One of the reasons we would go to Europa is
because it is a icy moon. Some theorize
it is incredibly likely that there is an ocean with liquid water and possibly
life! So we would send a small probe
with a heated drill bit, send in a small submarine and see what is down there. If there is no life, then snowballs and ice
cubes for everyone! One last thing that
could happen is we could see a lander on Pluto.
I’ve heard of this once or twice but I don’t know if it will ever get
off the ground. (PUN INTENDED).
No matter what happens, our curiosity and willingness to
explore is what drove us to America or explore the furthest corners of the
globe in the first place! Space should
be no different because it is there and it is something that is waiting to be
seen. It is within our grasp! We should not let anything on this earth draw
us away from what is and what will be.
Through all the conflicts and wars and natural catastrophe’s that could
have killed us, it is truly a miracle that we have reached this far in a
universe like this, where there is such beauty and such high possibility for
life for us to make friends and hopefully have a greater understanding of the
universe and where we are as a species.
