We constantly wondered looking into space for several centuries. Today, as the technology is advancing, secrets of space are slowly coming out. Space exploration started in the late 1950s’ and has crossed many milestones from then, and there are many things to come in the future.
We are spending billions of dollars every year on space exploration because of two main goals, they are
- Space colonization
- Understanding the universe
Index
What is the need to explore Space?
As mentioned, we need to explore space so as to colonize it and also to understand the universe better.
Moreover, Earth probably cannot sustain the ever-growing population and will surely react negatively and can wipe out human civilization. Not only that there can be any catastrophe which can completely wipe out the human race. To prevent this we have to explore the space and colonize the space.
“I don’t think the human race will survive the next thousand years unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I’m an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.”
–STEPHEN HAWKING
Above those two general reasons there exist some other deep and spiritual questions and like,
Are we alone?
Why are we here in this universe?
What is the purpose of this universe?
Who is controlling this universe in such an organized manner?
We need to find answers to these questions and our curiosity will continuously push us towards these questions.
In this article, let us travel through the history of space exploration and also future predictions. We will have a look at every detail of space exploration and our future plans to conquer the space
According to Wikipedia, “Space exploration is the discovery and exploration of celestial structures in outer space by means of evolving and growing space technology”. Space is probably the biggest thing we have to explore and learn things.
Firstly let us travel into the past and see what are the milestones in the history of space exploration……
Space Exploration History
Space exploration started in 1957 when Sputnik, the first human-made object was launched into earth orbit by the Soviet Union. Back then, it was more of a race between the two superpowers. Both the Soviet Union and the United States were in a cold war and as a result of that, they were competing like anything in each and every field which includes space.
As a result, most of the early space exploration was done only by these two countries and there space research organizations which are
Milestones
The first milestones in space explorations were
| Sputnik 1 | The first man-made object in space | 4 October 1957 |
| Vostok 1 | The first human Spaceflight | 12 April 1961 |
| Voskhod 2 Mission | First Space Walk | 18 March 1965 |
| Luna 9 | The first automatic landing on the moon | 3 February 1966 |
| Apollo 11 | First human lands on the moon | 20 July 1969 |
| Salyut 1 | First Space station | 19 April 1971 |
Among all the above milestones in the history of space exploration, only one mission that is the Apollo 11 mission was done by the US and all others were from the Soviet Union.
After these things, there were many missions, and space exploration progressed at a fast pace.
The decade wise progress
The 1960s’ was the period of unmanned missions to space and moon collecting information which made us capable of sending manned missions to the moon.
The 1970s’ was the period when the number of navigating and communicating satellites was increasing rapidly. By the end of the 1970s’, we had satellites orbiting and mapping Mars and Jupiter.
The 1980s’ saw a major expansion in satellite communications which helped to telecast television programs through satellite signals. In this time we found a hole in the ozone layer. We also had astronomical satellites by this time. It was this time when we got a completely different view of the centre of our galaxy. Space shuttle program also started in the 80s’
For the coming three decades the world saw the use of reusable space shuttles to complete several missions. There were a few disasters in this space shuttle program killing some astronauts.
More info about Disasters:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_program#Accidents
The 1990s saw the construction of the present international space station. It has been occupied from the year 2000 till now.
Meanwhile, in these five decades that is from the 1960s to 2000s, a few other countries also joined the space exploration and research by forming their own space agencies which include China, Japan, India and European union.
In the 2000s, there were missions not only to our neighbour Mars but also to almost all other planets and to their prominent moons. We sent rovers to Mars which are exploring the Martian surface to find life holding potential.
Though we launched a few probes to monitor the sun, they were placed far away from the sun. With the development in technology, now we are able to launch probes which are placed close to the sun. The Parker probe which has been launched recently will be placed just 6 million kilometres from Sun.
Until 2000s people thought that space exploration is very costly and can be handled only by governments, but the 21st century saw the rise of fully capable private space agencies. Some of those private companies are
- SpaceX
- Blue Origin
- Interstellar Technologies
- Onespace
List of private spaceflight companies: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_private_spaceflight_companies
Apart from these, there are many emerging private space agencies. Recently many private companies are coming up with innovative designs for space travel.
Now as we have travelled into the past of space exploration, lets dive into the future and know about what can happen in the future.
Future of Space Explorations
Till now we have sent humans to Moon and we have sent man-made objects as far as outside our solar system.
Next step in this space exploration is sending humans to Mars and other planets and start colonizing our solar system. Today, the said private space agencies are more enthusiastically trying to send manned missions to Mars.
Next Stop – Mars
As we all know that there are many problems with space colonization, firstly let us know what are the problems we have with Mars, the problems with Mars are
- The gravity on Mars is only 38% of Earth which is very less
- The plants and animals on earth cannot survive ambient conditions on Mars
- Mars is much cooler than Earth with temperatures ranging between -5 to -87 degree Celsius
- Water on Mars is as scarce as worst deserts on Earth
- Dust storms are very common on Mars and they block sunlight for several days.
- Mars have a very thin atmosphere due to which the atmospheric pressure is very less
- As Mars doesn’t have a magnetosphere, solar particles and cosmic rays can easily enter Mars and harm living beings
- Both the Martian atmosphere and soil is toxic for humans
The above problems are not the problems we have only with Mars, we will face these problems with many other planets when we try colonizing planets in other solar systems.
Though we have many problems on Mars and it seems a bit difficult to colonize our nearest neighbour itself, scientists, physicians and many companies are working day and night to find solutions to these problems.
More Info – Mars Mission
So as we now know about Mars which is the next step in space exploration and colonization, let us travel into further future and know the extent to which we can go and what can we do in space.
Once we develop full-scale space colonization technology, firstly we will be able to harness all the energy in our solar system which will make us Type 1 civilization (according to Kardashev Scale).
After conquering our solar system we will slowly explore and colonize other solar systems which will lead to humans becoming Type-2 civilization with access to the energy of the whole galaxy. In this path, we will someday reach Type-3 stage also which is a civilization controlling whole universe and will be the ultimate civilization.
Conclusion
So, that was the a dive into space ans pace exploration guys. I hope that we invent new things soon which will make our space travel easy and fast because i am very excited to go for a space tour. Tell your opinion in comments below
