The first people to colonize a world beyond our solar system may have trouble describing their new home to the folks back on Earth.
The nearest star to Earth, Proxima Centauri , lies 4.2 light-years from us — so far away that it would take tens of thousands of years to get there using current technology. And most stars, of course, are much more distant than that; our Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years wide.
So, barring a huge breakthrough — the development of matter-antimatter engines, for example, or the mastery of wormhole travel, or suspended-animation tech — any crewed interstellar mission is going to be a multigenerational affair. (The outlook is a bit rosier for robotic interstellar efforts. The first such mission could launch just a few decades from now, if the $100 million Breakthrough Starshot project is successful.)
This may worth something:
The smartest way to get back into space travel is not the easiest way.
Last month I watched SpaceX launch the first manned mission to space from American soil since 2011 . From Florida no less, home of the Apollo program. But that also made me sad.
Not because I don't absolutely love space exploration or have the deepest admiration for the engineers, scientists and astronauts involved. I do. But because it feels like we're sitting on top of half a million kilos of explosives ready to blast us straight to a dystopian hellscape.
Travel to the stratosphere and back with Space Perspective in 2021
Space X and Virgin Atlantic have been on everybody’s radar for making commercial space flights viable. Now Florida-based ‘space tourism’ firm Space Perspective wants you to have a different perspective, of earth. The company will be offering a trip to the edge of space onboard the Neptune Space Balloon.
It will function very much like the high-altitude weather balloons, only at a much larger scale. There will be an attached pressurised capsule below, able to accommodate up to eight passengers at once. It will launch from the NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA and head in an upwards trajectory towards the Milky Way Galaxy.
The UAE's Hope Mars orbiter: Here's 6 things to know about the historic mission | Space
The United Arab Emirates (UAE) is sending a spacecraft called Hope to Mars in what will, if successful, become the first interplanetary mission based out of the Arab region.
The mission focuses on understanding Mars' weather and atmosphere. It's a topic that plenty of missions have touched on before, but the Hope spacecraft will take a new, more comprehensive approach to the question. The UAE hopes the mission will help scientists around the world to understand how weather changes on the Red Planet over the course of a day and between the Martian seasons; the mission could also shed light on how our neighboring world is losing its atmosphere .
This may worth something:
Space Tourism Packages, Compared: SpaceX, NASA, Virgin, Blue Origin | Observer
Things aren’t going so great on the planet Earth right now, and travel isn’t easy, but if you’ve got a bit of cash, you can really get away. A number of well-capitalized companies have been hacking away at Space Tourism, or commercially flying “regular” people into space, and now it’s on the verge of reality.
Space vacation packages come in a wide variety. For beginners, British billionaire Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic is offering a 1.5-hour joy ride to the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere. NASA is opening the International Space Station to private citizens. And, for hard-core space explorers, Elon Musk’s SpaceX has promised to fly you to the Moon (for a hefty price) in as soon as 2023.
ESO's virtual tour: Travel to outer space from the comfort of your home
From Earth-like exoplanets to one of the biggest observatories in the Southern Hemisphere, these free virtual tours take you to the far corners of the universe
NASA astronauts on historic SpaceX mission aiming for August 2 return - CNN
For The First Time, Human Cartilage Has Been Engineered in Space
If we're going to get serious about long-term space voyages, then being able to patch up injuries will be essential – and that's no longer a far-off concept.
A cosmonaut on board the International Space Station just engineered human cartilage in the microgravity of space for the first time.
Bioprinters that can produce human tissue already exist on Earth, but they rely on gravity and scaffolds in order to bring cartilage cells together.
Happening on Twitter
Interstellar space travel will have language complications for astronauts https://t.co/mJvjcDHaRz https://t.co/oarQqQc7iD SPACEdotcom (from NYC) Fri Jul 17 14:09:33 +0000 2020
This #SunDay, explore one of the missions we use to understand the farthest reaches of the Sun's influence: the Int… https://t.co/7IaaqQYsRR NASASun (from NASA Goddard, Greenbelt, MD) Sun Jul 12 15:53:03 +0000 2020
From 'Gravity' to 'Interstellar' to 'Alien,' space movies hold a special place in our hearts 🚀 https://t.co/VbypMre1a8 mashable Thu Jul 16 15:17:00 +0000 2020
No comments:
Post a Comment