Phoenix's descent captured by HiRISE. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona
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I’ve been meaning to put together an article highlighting the best space and astronomy pictures of 2008, but I see time is slowly slipping away from me to get this out before 2008 turns into 2009. However, I’m in luck! A few people have already done the work for me, and so I’ll just link to them. First, of course, is Phil Plait over at the Bad Astronomy Blog, who does his annual Top Ten Astronomy Pictures, and this year’s choices by the BA were excellent. Next, Dave Mosher over at Discovery Space has just put together a slideshow of his picks for the Best Space and Astronomy Pictures of 2008. Nice job, Dave! And this just in (update 8:10 pm) — Emily Lakdawalla at the Planetary Society Blog has a great selection of The Year in Pictures 2008. Thanks Emily!
There are more links below, but I know if I would have done a list myself, the image above would have been my #1 pick. This shot by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’sHiRISE Camera of the Phoenix lander descending through Mars’ atmosphere is truly outstanding. It’s an unbelievable shot, and I’ll always remember how my jaw dropped in disbelief when I first saw it.
And now back to everyone else’s best pics of 2008 lists:
I recently came across this site from and television station in India that put together a list of the 50 (wow! 50!) Best Astronomy Pictures of 2008.
The Boston Globe’s The Big Picture put together an “Advent Calendar” of 25 pictures from the Hubble Space Telescope that is well worth the trip if you haven’t already browsed through the nice and roomy images. I think my favorite is #9.
SpaceX DragonLab™ - a free-flying, fully-recoverable, reusable spacecraft capable of hosting pressurized and unpressurized payloads. Credit: SpaceX
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Two upstart commercial space companies have been awarded contracts by NASA for commercial cargo resupply services to the International Space Station. SpaceX, also known as Space Exploration Technologies received a contract for $1.6 billion while Orbital Sciences Corp. of Dulles, Va. has a contract valued at $1.9 billion. NASA has ordered 12 flights from SpaceX and eight from Orbital. In October, at this year’s International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight, SpaceX Vice President of Marketing and Communications Diane Murphy said that the six- year-old company has it in their sights to be able to fly to the space station by 2009. For now, the contract is for cargo only, however SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket are human rated, and would be capable of delivering up to 7 crew members to the station. The Dragon could also be used as an escape vehicle. If SpaceX and Orbital can be successful in cargo re-supply, it could pave the way for a potential solution to the gap between the shuttle retirement in 2010 and when the Constellation program would be ready to fly, hopefully by 2015.
“The SpaceX team is honored to have been selected by NASA as the winner of the Cargo Resupply Services contract,” said Elon Musk, CEO and CTO, SpaceX. “This is a tremendous responsibility, given the swiftly approaching retirement of the Space Shuttle and the significant future needs of the Space Station. This also demonstrates the success of the NASA COTS program, which has opened a new era for NASA in US Commercial spaceflight.” Orbital's Cygnus module will be used for ISS resupply. Credit: Orbital
“We are very appreciative of the trust NASA has placed with us to provide commercial cargo transportation services to and from the International Space Station, beginning with our demonstration flight scheduled in late 2010,” said Mr. David W. Thompson, Orbital’s Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. “The CRS program will serve as a showcase for the types of commercial services U.S. space companies can offer NASA, allowing the space agency to devote a greater proportion of its resources for the challenges of human spaceflight, deep space exploration and scientific investigations of our planet and the universe in which we live.”
Orbital will use their module called Cygnus to deliver cargo, launched on their Taurus rocket.
These fixed-price indefinite delivery, indefinite quantity contracts will begin Jan. 1, 2009, and are effective through Dec. 31, 2016. The contracts each call for the delivery of a minimum of 20 metric tons of upmass cargo to the space station. The contracts also call for delivery of non-standard services in support of the cargo resupply, including analysis and special tasks as the government determines are necessary.
NASA has set production milestones and reviews on the contracts to monitor progress toward providing services. The maximum potential value of each contract is about $3.1 billion. Based on known requirements, the value of both contracts combined is projected at $3.5 billion.
These agreements do fulfill NASA’s need to for cargo delivery to the space station after the retirement of the space shuttle.
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A coalition of leaders working on the concept of a space elevator has joined forces to form the International Space Elevator Consortium (ISEC). The new independent group is designed to promote standards and foster research relating to the construction of an Elevator to Space at the global level. Founding members of ISEC include the Spaceward Foundation, the Space Elevator Reference, the Space Elevator Blog, EuroSpaceward and the Japan Space Elevator Association. Heading the new organization is Ted Semon of the Space Elevator Blog, who will serve as president. Michael Laine, president of the space elevator company Liftport is excited about the consortium. “I think it’s a great thing,” he said. “This has been in the works for months, and the need to bring the different organizations under one roof has been long overdue. All five of the major organizations have been acting independently, which made sense in the beginning, but now we need coordination and cooperation.”
“The Space Elevator is a project whose time has come,” said Semon. “With the challenges facing today’s global economy, it is clear that new industries and new ideas are needed to help our planet in the 21st Century. The Space Elevator can be a key positive contributor, from providing inexpensive nanotechnology material science breakthroughs that will make your car stronger and lighter, to the creation of new industries that offer opportunities for investment and job creation. The International Space Elevator Consortium devoted to its development can make this happen.”
According to the Consortium, the goal of ISEC is to promote the development, construction and operation of the Space Elevator as a revolutionary and efficient way to space for all humanity. The group will accomplish this through these key areas:
• Development of a unified plan and roadmap for the Space Elevator and the coordinated assignment of specific research topics
• Funding of research on technologies relevant to the Space Elevator
• Development of the international legal framework necessary for the operation of the Space Elevator
• Global public outreach and central information exchange on Space Elevator activities
“In the past, some things fell through the cracks because no one knew what anyone else was working on,” said Laine. “Some needed tasks didn’t get done because everyone assumed that someone else was working on it. What we’re going to do with the consortium is refine the tasks, and have a better coordinated effort.”
Laine is very excited about upcoming projects for the consortium, to be announced in the next few weeks. “They’ve got some good things coming,” he said. ISEC will be unveiling additional plans and details, including a board of directors, technical journals, university and industry relationships, research opportunities and scholarships. Memberships will be available on the individual, corporate, academic and governmental levels.
The ISEC is headquartered in the Los Angeles area, a center of the aerospace industry. The consortium is a non-profit organization devoted to the research and construction of an elevator to space. See the ISEC website for more information.
Apollo 8's famous Earthrise picture. Would you like to have this view? Credit: NASA
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The Apollo 8 mission was a seminal moment not in only the history of spaceflight, but in human history as well. The mission came during a time when the US and the world were divided by war and racial issues. It’s been said that Apollo 8 “saved” 1968 from being an otherwise divisive and disheartening year, and because of the success of the mission – in terms of both technical and philosophical matters — the Apollo 8 crew of Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders were named “Men of the Year” by Time Magazine. Apollo 8 was the first human mission to orbit the moon, but it wasn’t supposed to be. And the mission was responsible for one of the most iconic images of our time.
Read more about Apollo 8 and watch an excellent video NASA put together to commemorate the mission on its 40th anniversary
Originally the mission was slated to test the lunar lander hardware in Earth orbit. But the lunar lander wasn’t ready and then other political issues came into play. NASA was told, incorrectly it turned out, by the CIA that the Soviet Union was preparing its own manned lunar mission and was ready to launch. As NASA wanted to be first to the moon and also fulfill President John Kennedy’s call for a US manned lunar landing by the end of the decade, they took a gamble and designated Apollo 8 to go and orbit the moon.
The decision was controversial. NASA’s giant Saturn V rocket, the only rocket capable of taking humans to the Moon, had been fraught with problems and instrument failures on its two test flights. Also, fresh in everyone’s minds was the fire in 1967 in which killed three astronauts – Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee – during a ground test of an Apollo capsule. Apollo 8 launch. Credit: NASA
Yes, it was a gamble, but it paid off. The crew launched on December 21, and it was the first manned launch of the Saturn V rocket. It went well, although Anders tells the story how he felt severe vibrations during the first moments of launch, and feeling almost like a bug on top of a car antenna, vibrating back and forth. But the giant rocket, 363 feet tall and weighing 6.25 million pounds performed well and following a rocket burn for trans-lunar injection, the astronauts were on their way to the moon.
Early on Christmas Eve, Apollo 8 reached its destination. The astronauts fired the propulsion system to slow the rocket, putting them into lunar orbit. For its first three obits, the astronauts kept its windows pointing down towards the Moon and frantically filmed the craters and mountains below. One of their main tasks was to do reconnaissance for the future Apollo landings.
It was not until Apollo 8 was on its fourth orbit that Borman decided to roll the craft away from the Moon and to point its windows towards the horizon in order to get a navigational fix. A few minutes later, he spotted a blue-and-white object coming over the horizon. Transcripts of the Apollo 8 mission reveal the astronauts’ wonder and amazement at what they were seeing: Earth, from a quarter of million miles away, rising from behind the Moon. “Oh my God! Look at the picture over there. Here’s the Earth coming up,” Borman shouted. This was followed by a flurry of exclamations by Anders and Lovell and a scramble to find a camera. Anders found one first and the first image he took was black-and-white, showing Earth just peeping over the horizon. Then Anders found a roll of 70mm color film for the Hasselblad camera, and he took the photograph of Earthrise that became an icon of 20th-century, portraying technological advances and heightening ecological awareness. Apollo 8 crew. Credit: NASA
This was the way humans first recorded their home planet from another world. “It was the most beautiful, heart-catching sight of my life,” Borman said later, “one that sent a torrent of nostalgia, of sheer homesickness, surging through me. It was the only thing in space that had any color to it. Everything else was either black or white. But not the Earth.”
Jim Lovell said that Earth was “a grand oasis in the vast loneliness of space.”
The three astronauts agree the most important thing they brought back from the mission was the photography, not only of the moon, but of Earth.
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of Apollo 8, the crew of the International Space Station’s Expedition 18, Commander Mike Fincke and Flight Engineers Sandy Magnus and Yury Lonchakov will send a message to be aired on a message that will air on NASA Television as part of the daily Video File, beginning at 11 a.m. CST, Friday, Dec. 19. The video also will be broadcast in high definition on the NASA TV HD channel at 10
a.m., noon and 3 p.m. on Friday, Dec. 19, and Tuesday, Dec. 23.
2008 has been a landmark year for space science and physics endeavour. We’ve peered deep into the cosmos and fitted new pieces into some of the most intriguing universal puzzles. We’ve explored other planets with technology we wouldn’t have recognised a decade ago. We’ve assembled some of the most complex experiments to test theories of the very small and the very big. 2008 has built strong foundations for the future of the exploration of the Universe in so many ways…
This week, Time Magazine published the top 10 “Scientific Discoveries” of 2008. Technically, as many readers pointed out, a few of the entries are not “discoveries”, they are “achievements”. Although this might have been the case, space exploration and physics dominated, with the #1 slot going to the LHC and #2 slot going to the Phoenix Mars Lander (#4 and #6 went to the Chinese spacewalk and exoplanets respectively). After reading the superb suggestion put forward by Astrofiend (thanks!), it was the push I needed to want to create a Universe Today version of a “Top 10” for 2008 (I’d love to do a top 20, but I have to find some time for Christmas shopping).
This top ten will focus on the last 12 months of Universe Today articles, so take a journey through the year’s events in space science and physics to find your favourite scientific endeavour of 2008. If you can’t find the article, just leave the name of the specific endeavour and we’ll do the rest. Please leave all nominations in the comments box below…
You have one week to get your nominations in (so your deadline is December 19th), and I’ll compile the list of winners hopefully in time for Christmas. The nominations will be considered not only according to popularity, but also chosen by your unbiased Universe Today team…
Direct observation of an exoplanet orbiting the star Fomalhaut - Number 6 in the top 10 (NASA/HST)
[/caption]2008 has been an astounding year of scientific discovery. To celebrate this fact, Time Magazine has listed the “Top 10 Scientific Discoveries” where space exploration and physics dominate. Other disciplines are also listed; including zoology, microbiology, technology and biochemistry, but the number 1 slot goes to the most ambitious physics experiment of our time. Can you guess what it is? Also, of all our endeavours in space, can you pick out three that Time Magazine has singled out as being the most important?
As we approach the end of the year, ready to welcome in 2009, it is good to take stock and celebrate the mind-blowing achievements mankind has accomplished. Read on for the top 10 scientific discoveries of 2008…
The best thing about writing for a leading space news blog is that you gain wonderful overview to all our endeavours in astronomy, space flight, physics, politics (yes, space exploration has everything to do with politics), space commercialization and science in general. 2008 has been such a rich year for space exploration; we’ve landed probes on other worlds, studied other worlds orbiting distant stars, peered deep into the quantum world, learnt profound things about our own planet, developed cutting-edge instrumentation and redefined the human existence in the cosmos. We might not have all the answers (in fact, I think we are only just beginning to scratch the surface of our understanding of the Universe), but we have embarked on an enlightening journey on which we hope to build strong foundations for the next year of scientific discovery.
In an effort to assemble some of the most profound scientific endeavours of this year, Time Magazine has somehow narrowed the focus down to just 10 discoveries. Out of the ten, four are space and physics related, so here they are:
Considering there have never been any direct observations of exoplanets before November 2008–although we have known about the presence of worlds orbiting other stars for many years via indirect methods–this has been a revolutionary year for exoplanet hunters.
4. China Soars into Space: First taikonaut carries out successful spacewalk Zhai Zhigang exits the Shenzhou-7 capsule with Earth overhead (Xinhua/BBC)Following hot on the heels of one of the biggest Olympic Games in Beijing, China launched a three-man crew into space to make history. The taikonauts inside Shenzhou-7 were blasted into space by a Long March II-F rocket on September 25th.
Despite early controversy surrounding recorded spaceship transmissions before the rocket had even launched, and then the sustained efforts by conspiracy theorists to convince the world that the whole thing was staged, mission commander Zhai Zhigang did indeed become the first ever Chinese citizen to carry out a spacewalk. Zhai spent 16 minutes outside of the capsule, attached by an umbilical cable, to triumphantly wave the Chinese flag and retrieve a test sample of solid lubricant attached to the outside of the module. His crew mate Liu Boming was also able to do some spacewalking.
Probably the most incredible thing about the first Chinese spacewalk wasn’t necessarily the spacewalk itself, it was the speed at which China managed to achieve this goal in such a short space of time. The first one-man mission into space was in 2003, the second in 2005, and the third was this year. Getting man into space is no easy task, to build an entire manned program in such a short space of time, from the ground-up, is an outstanding achievement.
2. The North Pole – of Mars: The Phoenix Mars Lander Capturing the world's attention: Phoenix (NASA/UA)Phoenix studied the surface of the Red Planet for five months. It was intended to only last for three. In that time, this robotic explorer captured the hearts and minds of the world; everybody seemed to be talking about the daily trials and tribulations of this highly successful mission. Perhaps it was because of the constant news updates via the University of Arizona website, or the rapid micro-blogging via Twitter; whatever the reason, Phoenix was a short-lived space celebrity.
To give the highly communicative lander the last word, MarsPhoenix on Twitter has recently announced: “Look who made Time Mag’s Top 10 list for Scientific Discoveries in 2008: http://tinyurl.com/5mwt2l”
In the run-up to the switch-on of the LHC in September, the world’s media focused its attention on the grandest physics experiment ever constructed. The LHC will ultimately probe deep into the world of subatomic particles to help to explain some of the fundamental questions of our Universe. Primarily, the LHC has been designed to hunt for the elusive Higgs boson, but the quest will influence many facets of science. From designing an ultra-fast method of data transmission to unfolding the theoretical microscopic dimensions curled up in space-time, the LHC is a diverse science, with applications we won’t fully appreciate for many years.
Unfortunately, as you may be wondering, the LHC hasn’t actually discovered anything yet, but the high-energy collisions of protons and other, larger subatomic particles, will revolutionize physics. I’d argue that the simple fact the multi-billion euro machine has been built is a discovery of how advanced our technological ability is becoming.
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Communication with spacecraft is vital for NASA, and since the World Wide Web has enabled easy, reliable and quick contact for people around the world, the space agency decided to model a new deep space communication system on the internet. A month-long test of this “Interplanetary Internet” was successfully conducted by transmitting dozens of images to and from the EPOXI spacecraft, now about 20 million miles from Earth. The system uses software called Disruption-Tolerant Networking, or DTN created by a partnership between NASA and Google vice president Vint Cerf. “This is the first step in creating a totally new space communications capability, an interplanetary Internet,” said Adrian Hooke, team lead and manager of space-networking architecture, technology and standards at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
NASA’s current communication system, the Deep Space Network, has been around since the early days of space travel, and NASA is looking to upgrade and enhance their ability to communicate with spacecraft. The Interplanetary Internet must be robust to withstand delays, disruptions and disconnections in space. Glitches can happen when a spacecraft moves behind a planet, or when solar storms and long communication delays occur. The delay in sending or receiving data from Mars takes between three-and-a-half to 20 minutes at the speed of light. Therefore, the DTN sends information using a method that differs from the normal Internet’s Transmission-Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP, communication suite, which Cerf also co-designed.
Unlike TCP/IP on Earth, the DTN does not assume a continuous end-to-end connection. In its design, if a destination path cannot be found, the data packets are not discarded. Instead, each network node keeps the information as long as necessary until it can communicate safely with another node. This store-and-forward method, similar to basketball players safely passing the ball to the player nearest the basket means information does not get lost when no immediate path to the destination exists. Eventually, the information is delivered to the end user. This is all done automatically.
Engineers began a month-long series of DTN demonstrations in October. Data were transmitted using NASA’s Deep Space Network in demonstrations occurring twice a week. Engineers use NASA’s EPOXI spacecraft as a Mars data-relay orbiter. EPOXI spacecraft is the bus from the Deep Impact mission that send an impactor to Comet Temple 1 in July of 2005, and it is now on a mission to encounter Comet Hartley 2 in two years. There are 10 nodes on this early interplanetary network. One is the EPOXI spacecraft itself and the other nine, which are on the ground at JPL, simulate Mars landers, orbiters and ground mission-operations centers.
This month-long experiment is the first in a series of planned demonstrations to qualify the technology for use on a variety of upcoming space missions. As Ian reported last month, the next round of testing will be done on the International Space Station next summer.
In the next few years, the Interplanetary Internet could enable many new types of space missions. Complex missions involving multiple landed, mobile and orbiting spacecraft will be far easier to support through the use of the Interplanetary Internet. It also could ensure reliable communications for astronauts on the surface of the moon.
[/caption]In an initiative energized by Google Vice-President and Chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cerf, the International Space Station could be testing a brand new way of communicating with Earth. In 2009, it is hoped that the ISS will play host to an Interplanetary Internet prototype that could standardize communications between Earth and space, possibly replacing point-to-point single use radio systems customized for each individual space mission since the beginning of the Space Age.
This partnership opens up some exciting new possibilities for the future of communicating across vast distances of the Solar System. Manned and robotic space craft will be interconnected via a robust interplanetary network without the problems associated with incompatible communication systems…
“The project started 10 years ago as an attempt to figure out what kind of technical networking standards would be useful to support interplanetary communication,” Cerf said in a recent interview. “Bear in mind, we have been flying robotic equipment to the inner and outer planets, asteroids, comets, and such since the 1960’s. We have been able to communicate with those robotic devices and with manned missions using point-to-point radio communications. In fact, for many of these missions, we used a dedicated communications system called the Deep Space Network (DSN), built by JPL in 1964.”
Indeed, the DSN has been the backbone of interplanetary communications for decades, but an upgrade is now required as we have a growing armada of robotic missions exploring everything from the surface of Mars to the outermost regions of the Solar System. Wouldn’t it be nice if a communication network could be standardized before manned missions begin moving beyond terrestrial orbit?
“When we launch a spacecraft with a unique set of sensors onboard, we often end up writing special communication and application software that is adapted to that spacecraft’s sensor systems and manipulators,” Cerf said in response to the challenges space missions face each time they are designed.
The Internet uses standard TCP/IP protocols so billions of online entities are always compatible. Although there are limitations to the Internet, it has proven to be a highly flexible and scalable system, so with the help of Google, NASA hopes to push the Internet beyond Earth. “The Interplanetary Internet project is primarily about developing a set of communication standards and technical specifications to support rich networking in space environments,” Cerf added.
This all sounds very interesting, but the challenges with building such a system require some novel techniques. How do you deal with the limitation of the speed of light? After all, it can take light 40 minutes to travel to-and-from Mars, and up to 12 hours to Pluto and back. How do you cater for planetary rotation? The transmitters/receivers won’t always be on the correct side of the planet. What happens if a satellite signal is blocked by a planet, the Sun or a moon?
Vint Cerf says the disruption of data transmission has to be confronted with a delay- and disruption-tolerant networking system, otherwise known as DTN. “It will allow us to maintain communications more effectively, getting much more data because we don’t have to be in direct line of sight with the ultimate recipient in order to transfer data,” he said.
DTN will be based on store-and-forward methods used by TCP/IP systems; if there is a disruption in signal, the transmitting station will hold data packets until the signal is re-established. However, DTN will be more robust, catering for long transmission lag-times (such as the many-hour light transmission times between Earth and the outer Solar System). “We have to cope with the fact that there is a really high potential for delay and disruption in the system,” he added.
Standard TCP/IP protocol should also work seamlessly with the DTN, allowing planetary missions to have their own distributed Internet whilst using DTN as a link through interplanetary space.
No coming back? The first Mars settlers should stay there (NASA/Ian O'Neill)
[/caption]Commenting on the strategy for the exploration of Mars, Buzz Aldrin, second man on the Moon and tireless space exploration advocate, has said that he believes the first explorers of the Red Planet should stay there. Following similar lines of the first European pioneers who settled in America, a small group of interplanetary explorers should expect to land, build, live and retire (probably even die) on Mars.
Setting up home on the Martian surface will be no easy thing (after all, the atmosphere is 100 times thinner than the Earth’s and the planet has no magnetic field to protect colonists from the ravages of solar radiation), but Mars offers far greater potential as a habitable world than any other Solar System option.
40 years after Aldrin landed on the Moon, one can understand his frustration that there is no current manned space exploration program leaving Earth orbit. Perhaps a pioneering effort to Mars will make all the difference – if we succeed there, who knows where it might lead…
The subject of sending a manned expedition to Mars has always been a controversial one. Who do we send? How long should the mission last? Is sending one explorer an option (it would certainly be cheaper)? Do we make plans for a return mission? What about the health risks? Do we set up a human colony in the first instance? Is it REALLY worth the effort and money? But whether you like it or not, mankind will always have the urge to venture beyond Planet Earth and colonize other worlds (whether the funding or political will is there or not, but that’s another story).
But how can it be done? There has been much speculation about the future of Mars exploration, and we are beginning to take the first baby-steps toward the ultimate goal – a manned mission. The Phoenix Mars lander is classed as a “scout mission” intended to aid the planning of future colonies; satellites such as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (the clue is in the name – you have to do a bit of reconnaissance before sending in the troops!) has the The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) on board with the primary task of finding mineral deposits on the surface that might be of use to a manned settlement. Every mission we send to the Red Planet has some function to aid the planning of a future human presence on the Martian surface.
As if commenting on his personal experience of the Apollo Program, Buzz Aldrin has shared his views on manned exploration of Mars. As any manned spaceship could take up to 18 months to travel to Mars, Aldrin believes it makes more sense for the first mission to be a one-way trip. “That’s why you [should] send people there permanently,” said Aldrin. “If we are not willing to do that, then I don’t think we should just go once and have the expense of doing that and then stop.”
“If we are going to put a few people down there and ensure their appropriate safety, would you then go through all that trouble and then bring them back immediately, after a year, a year and a half?” Buzz added.
Currently, NASA and the European Space Agency has tentatively said they are planning for a trip to Mars by 2030 or 2040. The current idea is to send a small group of explorers (possibly six individuals) to Mars, but have all the life support systems and supplies already set up on the surface before they arrive. Once an outpost is established, more colonists can be sent out to join them. The first operational manned colony will probably be 30-strong.
However, these colonists will need to be unique individuals. “They need to go there more with the psychology of knowing that you are a pioneering settler and you don’t look forward to go back home again after a couple a years,” Aldrin said. But that’s not to say they’ll never return to Earth. Years down the line, there may be the opportunity for a return mission, depending on technological advancements. “At age 30, they are given an opportunity. If they accept, then we train them, at age 35, we send them. At age 65, who knows what advances have taken place. They can retire there, or maybe we can bring them back.”
Many will argue that a manned mission to Mars is a “waste of money,” after all, why go through the expense and risk of sending humans when robots can do the same job. Aldrin disagrees with this stance, pointing out that it makes more sense to have humans on the ground, making on-the-spot decisions. I would argue that robotic explorers can only achieve so much; we can send the most advanced analysis equipment on board the most advanced robot, but there is no substitute for human ingenuity and experience. Far more science can be done on the Martian surface by an astronaut rather than a remote controlled robot. If life really does exist on the Martian surface, a man on Mars will find it far quicker than any rover.
Why else send man to Mars? To “do things that are innovative, new, pioneering,” rather than letting manned space flight continue to be a disappointment, Buzz added. After all, the International Space Station hasn’t lived up to many expectations, and the last time we walked on the Moon was in 1972… perhaps we need to start making some bold moves in the direction of Mars before we can consider ourselves to be a space faring race.
One of the wonderful things about space exploration and astronomy is how it brings people together across cultures, countries and even languages. Almost all of the current planetary missions — Phoenix, Cassini, and Dawn, for example — are collaborative efforts between scientists and space agencies around the world. And all of our explorations, whether it be through spacecraft or telescopes embody the best of all of humanity: our creativity, our technological advances, our driving curiosity and spirit of perseverance. Furthermore, these explorations excite and inspire us, and also bring us together, providing a common bond. A friend that’s involved with the Chandrayaan mission, (JPL and ISRO working together) that’s now working its way to the Moon, sent me a link to a home video showing Chandrayaan’s launch. You don’t have to speak the language of India to understand how absolutely excited these people were to see their own country’s spacecraft rocket to space. See the video below:
You can’t help but cheer along with the people in the video. We can all cheer, and whoop and holler in excitement in the same language; no translations needed. Congrats to India and all the countries involved in the Chandrayaan mission. Woo hoo! and Yippee!!
