Space Exploration: The Key to the Future of Mankind

Retrieved March 28, 2012, from http://www.thespacereview.com/article/1040/1 NASA. (n.d.). Project Apollo: A Retrospective Analysis. NASA History. Retrieved March 29, 2012, from http://history.nasa.gov/Apollomon/Apollo.html The US Space Program Benefits.

In a mere forty years, we have had more technological advances than the Industrial Revolution. The Space Race has affected our everyday lives; we use the same technology that the astronauts used during their missions for example digital clocks (Dismukes http://spaceflight.nasa.gov). Many industries have benefited, communication companies, industrial manufacturers, and the medical field. As a result of this technological revolution, the world has become smaller. With the technology gained from the Space Race, we can perform medical tasks that only existed in the dreams of surgeons; we can communicate with another person on the other side of the world in seconds, not days or months.

However, it was a remarkable accomplishment for mankind, and the United States wanted to lead it. Millions of people watched the televised event because they knew this was an incredible advancement for humans (Redd). As Neil Armstrong made the first step, he summed up the point that this event would forever be an important achievement to the human race, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind" (Armstrong 268). At times it may seem that the development of new technology is stalling, but the moon landing proves that man is and will continue to make advancements. Only 66 years passed between the first airplane by the Wright Brothers and the moon landing (Stimson).

With the international space station being finished, five world powers have put their differences aside and created the greatest international and technological invention of all time. Through space exploration, just in the last 10 years, 150 planets have been discovered beyond our solar system (“Space Exploration” 2). The ideas space can bring to the mind of one who lets it wander could lead to the creation of the next renewable fuel source, or even human inhabiting another planet. If the federal government shuts down NASA and discontinues space exploration, the future survival of humanity may be jeopardized.

International Space Station The International Space Station, a worldwide project, is the next goal in a quickly growing space frontier. The station will be the first and next step towards researching the vast unknown world of outer space. What will be learned by this station? NASA has only the highest hopes that with the newest advancements in technology up in space, the fundamental physical, chemical, and biological processes can be examined with the absence of gravity, because of the space station. The space station has been a long awaited project, as the first space station idea was drafted up in 1984.

“The United States is justified in spending billions of dollars on NASA space missions to Mars.” Throughout the course of history, man has dreamed of stepping foot on another planet. The advances in technology in the 20th century have allowed man to do what at one time was considered unthinkable for millenniums before. With the advent of the modern space program in the early 1950’s, NASA has performed many inconceivable feats. They have sent and returned men to space. They’ve set up space stations orbiting the earth.

Our future, as the technically dominate nation prevailed; we not only reached the moon, we conquered it as a nation; united. What the United States NASA had done was an enormous move ahead into science and history. Today, where we stand as a nation, is due to this great leap in technology. Had it not been for this, our knowledge would be a fragment of what it is today. It wasn't just a small step for Neil Armstrong; it was a fundamental and significant step for humanity.

Space exploration by nature causes innovation because the need for “increased performance in space… usually means getting more out of less” (Crusan & Neumann, 2011). These size and weight constraints on materials and equipment have lead to the creation of devices that we use everyday like water filters, scratch resistant lenses, and memory foam. The newest advancement in NASA’s long list of innovations is the International Space station (ISS). The ISS a long-term micro-gravity research station that helps us get closer to eventually making a journey to other planets. NASA has been doing the impossible for 55 years and is now in the process of handing over the reigns to the private sector.

Because of Armstrong’s visit to the Moon during the Apollo 11 mission, man knows that he is not limited to Earth. As technology advances and man’s understanding of the way that the universe behaves grows, people will be able to take an even larger step in reaching other planets in the vast expanses of space. The benefits of creating a privatized space program in America are too great to ignore. From the plentiful jobs this would create to the reduced government spending this would allow, commercial space travel only aids the United States. It is time that America renews the ambition it held during Kennedy’s presidency.

With modern day technology and the pace in which it advances, it is fool... ... middle of paper ... ...umans by nature will have to relocate as it has been throughout the entire existence of the species in the planet. The only possibility that humans have for relocation is to move to a neighbor planet. According to experts in the physics and astrophysics department in 2078 Mars, Europa, and Titan will align and it will be the only opportunity in decades to visit these in one mission (Lali). Mars, although not habitable like Earth, is perhaps the safest planet to one day call home. Although its atmosphere is not equal to Earths' it is capable of sustaining life; therefore, it needs to be examined closely by humans, because the knowledge acquired by satellites and robots is limited.