Space Exploration and It’s Significance
With the development of airplanes in 20th century the curiosity of touching sky became a reality. The advancement happened so rapidly the fighter planes were made just after three decades of first plane ever built in human history. The amazing thing is Just two months before wright brothers made first flying object, New York times had published an article, - “Man won’t fly for million years”. Taking mathematics and engineering complexity yet to figure out, New York Times published an article, completely unaware of optimism of Wright Brothers who just after 69 days successfully flew for the first time. A decade after first prototype, we got First commercial airplane. The engineers crafting the design of metals so mathematically, now humans are able to travel inside a box through air. By 1930’s jet engines were developed. The world-war shaped the aviation, the powerful nations developed airplanes as the weapons, lethal one. It developed a game theory, the advancement in airplane; advancement in army and every powerful nation fought a battle of developing fighter jets too. Breaking sound barrier was achieved by 1947. The cold war between US and Soviet Union was a great opportunity for both nations and their allies to prove their superpower which led to developing best flying objects which could hover in air for long period of time. The nations poured billions into developing such jets and missiles which could travel intercontinental. The cold war turned into great opportunity for Avionics and Rocketry. The Soviet wanted to show its power that it could reach anywhere in the world, they launched humans in “space”; the idea was, if we could go to space breaking, the barrier of gravity of earth, earth is within our reach. It provoked the west, ‘the sixties’ was the era; the space was not just for wandering anymore, but a somewhere to reach. The Soviet launched Sputnik 1 in 1957, which shook the world demonstrating the technological capabilities of Soviet Union. To launch anything in space requires immense energy, critical calculation and huge budget, which soviet proved it had. Now the US had another challenge, if Soviet led technological influence in the world, US would lose everything they had gained over the decades. As Soviet had already sent humans on space, ‘Yuri Gagarin’, satellite like Sputnik 1, US had a big challenge in front of them. In 1962, President John F Kennedy gave one of the great speeches of all time in Rice University Stadium at Houston, "We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." He declared that by the end of decade, Astronauts will reach to the moon and return to earth. The challenge was huge, for a decade NASA launched many rockets in the space, delivering satellites in the lower earth orbit to outer space. The US launched over 100 satellites in 1960s. 32 Saturn rockets in a decade! The launching of rockets wasn’t limited to getting a vehicle to space, now a new area was there to take in control, “Whole space”. Many scientific satellites, weather satellites, Orbiters to capture photo of earth and outer space, many ambitious projects were run in a decade. Now the communication satellites were placed in space, the powerful nations were being independent within themselves in technological sector. Multiple lunar orbitals were launched capturing photo of ‘Moon’s surface’ and to decide landing site for Apollo 11. In July 16, 1969 from Kennedy Space Centre, a spaceflight was conducted with three crew members with commander Neil Armstrong, Lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin and Command module pilot Michael Collins, on July 21 Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the lunar surface.US had a big challenge in front of them. In 1962, President John F Kennedy gave one of the great speeches of all time in Rice University Stadium at Houston, "We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard." He declared that by the end of decade, Astronauts will reach to the moon and return to earth. The challenge was huge, for a decade NASA launched many rockets in the space, delivering satellites in the lower earth orbit to outer space. The US launched over 100 satellites in 1960s. 32 Saturn rockets in a decade! The launching of rockets wasn’t limited to getting a vehicle to space, now a new area was there to take in control, “Whole space”. Many scientific satellites, weather satellites, Orbiters to capture photo of earth and outer space, many ambitious projects were run in a decade. Now the communication satellites were placed in space, the powerful nations were being independent within themselves in technological sector. Multiple lunar orbitals were launched capturing photo of ‘Moon’s surface’ and to decide landing site for Apollo 11. In July 16, 1969 from Kennedy Space Centre, a spaceflight was conducted with three crew members with commander Neil Armstrong, Lunar module pilot Buzz Aldrin and Command module pilot Michael Collins, on July 21 Neil Armstrong became the first man to walk on the lunar surfac It was so historic moment that human has landed on the “Moon” in the space and walked on it. All we were just an idea away from flying, when we got, the moon wasn’t that far. On July 24 all the crew safely returned to earth. Now a new Space race has begun, every powerful country wanted to reach to the moon and beyond. Over the following decades many great space missions were launched, Understanding the rest of the planets of solar system was the coming challenge and opportunity for Space centers. After Sputnik and Vostok (which carried Yuri Gagarin to space) Luna was another series of space program led by USSR, which launched multiple missions to moon studying lunar surface. NASA with it’s ambitious missions like Mercury and Gemini collected the data for Apollo, followed by Apollo series which made historic achievements. Mariner Missions were launched throughout 1962-1973, studied about Mercury and Venus. To understand Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto and beyond other missions were conducted. Pioneer missions were conducted to understand about Asteroid belt, Jupiter and Saturn. Two great launches of Voyagers, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 was conducted in 1977. Voyager 1 was designed to study about Jupiter and Saturn while Voyager 2 to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune and both the spacecrafts were launched to outer space for further understanding of solar system and beyond. Currently both space crafts are out there sending data to us, farthest manmade object in space is Voyager 1, 25 billion kilometers from earth, even light takes 23 hours to reach, it’s still exploring space and sending data back to us. Voyager 2 after Neptune it continued its journey further south, capturing data of Kuiper Belt and beyond, currently it’s 21 billion kilometers from earth, for contrast light takes 19 hours to reach voyager 2. Satellites like New Horizons were launched to study Kuiper belt, the region beyond Neptune consisting of ice bodies and dwarf planets. A game theory of Space race gave humans a better understanding of universe we live on. We got information about our neighboring planets. With the advancement in technology, the space is all open and within our reach.
The space, which we see through nighttime looks astonishing, no one gets tired of admiring and enjoying the beauty of space. It has power of humbling and exciting for future. As humans, with the ability of understanding the surrounding and ‘us’, we began to understand the space throughout the history. Our ancestors used the sky to get sense of earth’s seasons throughout the year. Navigating the long distance accurately through the vast ocean was only possible with the understanding of sky. Navigating the stars and crafting the journey led our ancestors to discover every corner of the earth. The human has extraordinary ability to develop and adapt. Discovery has become the Ace for easier livelihood. We can make a scale how fast we can grow by the fact that in the earliest 20th century first airplane was invented, in the next 66 years we landed on moon. There was a generation which never imagined humans will be able to fly, to witness human landing on moon. That’s how fast we develop any technology. After the dissolution of USSR, the space race also calmed. Billions were poured into space programs while hunger was still the problem in the countries. But the door was already opened. New insights and opportunities were being studied by institutes and agencies all over the world. Though very few space missions were conducted in following decades, with the stabilization in the economy and growing economy, space programs are being conducted. China, Japan, EU, India, Canada, the growing economies also heavily invested in space programs. The development in flight sector occurred in multiple ways, Commercial airplanes, Defense airplanes, Drones and Rockets. The commercial airplanes brought global travel to everyone’s door. Today anyone can travel anywhere in the world within a day. Defense airplanes developed in such astonishing ability, every great nation’s territory was being guarded with the fighter jets, it works for today too. The great opportunity lies there in space travel. A fantasy looking idea which holds such greatness for mankind, is being real with advancement. In technological sector AI and ML are surging, quantum computers are being developed, and most of all space flights are being conducted. Today various private agencies are pouring billions into developing efficient rocket engines and governments are also spending developing technology.
But why space? What’s there beyond the beauty of night sky, which of course is out of our reach? Considering space, we must be optimistic to see its significance. How our “humanity” is living today in the face of earth must be understood firstly. In the verse of technological advancement, we need energy to thrive. Energy, a lot of it; our small tasks require energy, which is primarily got through electricity or heat. A lot of resource is used for every development, from advanced computers to living in safety, everything requires energy. Consider a laptop you’re using, every part of it is mined from the surface of earth, the energy it requires either comes through hydropower, coal or nuclear. What the laptop holds, it seems it’s just an instrument that you’re using to do your regular job, but in global scale, the technology it holds and the chain we have developed over that technology, is driving the humanity. Every piece of data we get from every research is stored in the similar box you’re holding, cure to every disease to vital information of any country. It’s the technology that we developed, and we rely upon, and where is it going? The computer that landed Apollo 11 was less smart than the modern calculators. Today we have internet, we have advanced computer driven vehicles, tech in hospitals which doubled the average lifespan within a century, pretty much everything we see around has connection to human’s technological advancement. The exponential growth in technology also brings various risk, in global scale. The development of nuclear weapons was also developed in a series of game theory, a silent war. Climate change is also other great factor threatening the life on earth. As humans are the only conscious creature, the ability to understand universe itself, it’s a great privilege for us to get this ability, we must save consciousness to understand the universe. The growing population demands more energy, also the growing population will bring more advancement, exponential growth in demand of energy. How can we sustain all of this? By scaling ourselves. Already colonization of Mars and base on Moon is being built by NASA and other private agencies which is a great step towards space exploration. Exploring nearby planets and making them habitable is the foremost and most complicated step for today. What will we achieve by doing this? The cosmos is violent, the odd of our survival and to the extent of developing consciousness and capable of exploring space, the odds are in our favor. We have no idea what cosmic disaster might hit us in the next century, from asteroid wiping dinosaurs to gamma ray Brust, it might seem we’re living in harmony but the constant chaos in the universe can wipe entire earth within a blink. To reach the horizon of advancement and understand universe itself, protect humanity from any dangers, expanding human territory to space is crucial. The basic need, ‘energy’ can be gained in so enormous amount from solar energy, mining asteroids and other planets and moons which will again bring prosperity in humanity. The only way is space exploration, and the process is long. We won’t benefit instantly from it, but we can count as ‘One’ for the opportunity it brings along the way.
Space Exploration and It's Significance