When talking about the current space program, Neil Degrasse Tyson once said, “I got angry with America, because advancing is not just something you do incrementally. You need innovation as well, so that your advances are revolutionary, not merely evolutionary” (Tyson 3). America used to have the top space program in the world. Being first to the moon excited the country and gave everyone a sense of pride and fulfillment. Lately, though, we have been falling behind in space exploration. A successful space program is needed in America, and here’s why: we are losing our grip on the title as the world superpower and a new age of economics and politics is coming faster than we are prepared for. To be prepared for this new age we need the funds, The most deadly of those threats: asteroids. Don Yeoman, an employee at the Jet Propulsion Lab, a NASA facility, tracks over 600,000 asteroids every day. He figures out which ones are coming our way, and whether or not they are a threat (Kluger 1). Astronomers estimate that one in a thousand asteroids that pass our Earth will hit us (Booth 98). This may not seem like very many, until you consider that we are hit with at least one basketball sized asteroid every day (Kluger 6). So what happens when our one sizeable asteroid a day ends up to be the size of a mountain? Well if it happened today, we would surely be dead. Wiped out just like the dinosaurs. There is currently no way to deflect a deadly asteroid. It is estimated that we would have to know the asteroid was coming for us ten years in advance so that we would have enough time to design a spacecraft capable of saving our planet (Kluger 4). Ten years may sound like a long time, but space is unpredictable. An asteroid could be knocked off its regular path and come straight towards us. In 2013, the asteroid Chelyabinsk exploded over Russia injuring 1,600 people and damaging 7,300 buildings; thankfully the budget for asteroid tracking went from $20 million to $40 million after this catastrophe (3). Situations like these are why we need to make an asteroid-redirect spacecraft a top priority. Capitol Hill, however, did not like the More cost effective modes of space transportation are completely necessary to make further exploration possible. One new, cost effective design is the aerospaceplane. These spacecrafts are totally reusable and can take off and land like a normal plane (Booth 80). Anything reusable cuts costs. Many commercial spaceflight companies are interested in this design because so much money can be saved. There are also military uses for aerospaceplanes, just a few of these extremely fast and efficient vehicles could replace fleets of regular bombers (80). Another cost effective option for space travel is the solar sail. Solar sails work because solar photons have pressure that pushes the sail away from the sun (100). A spacecraft with a solar sail could reach Mars in the same amount of time it would take a rocket, so it is a cheap, renewable method of travel (100). This is exactly what we need to make it to Mars. It is cost-effective and works as well as any other propulsion system. There is still much farther to go in space. So much more to discover. At the speed of a current spacecraf it would take 80,000 years to reach the nearest star to Earth (108). How are we supposed to learn about other places when it would take about 2,000 generations of scientists before we could finally reach a star? Faster space travel is needed to make any new deep-space discoveries. There really are cost-effective options for space travel. Once we have
In July of 1958, President Eisenhower passed the National Aeronautics and Space Act, which established the National Aeronautics and Space Administration as a response to the Soviet Union's launch of Sputnik nine months earlier. That administration, now known worldwide as NASA, has become an icon of space exploration and mankind's accomplishments. Who would have thought that fifty years later, NASA's future would be so uncertain? Congress has recently proposed a bill that would significantly cut funding from the NASA's Constellation program. These budget cuts are unnecessary and are counterproductive to the original idea of the space program.
The 1960’s were full of questions, and one of the biggest questions the world was pondering about was regarding the Space Race: was the USA going to beat their communist enemy, the Soviet Union? The Space Race was a series of events that helped to symbolize and determine in the worlds’ eyes which form of government was better, communism (Soviets) or democracy (United States)? In the beginning of the race, the Soviets had the lead, and it was not looking good for America. Then the United States picked up the pace and spent well over eight billion dollars funding the space studies. This period of time made many scientists and astronauts heroes in the eyes of Americans. The Space Race was a combination of determination, intelligence, space projects, and American pride, all used to reach our exploration goals and surpass the Soviets.
Knowing the impermanence of the Earth, do humans have a moral obligation to find and
For some reason, NASA is just perfectly fine with watching men and women die right in front of them on their own computer screens. The man has been stuck up on Mars for 687 sols. That is 708 days in earth terms. Yes, he is the first person on to not only live, but survive on Mars for 708 days. That gives his hometown some huge publicity and major fame. All of this could have been avoided though. Mark could not gotten severely hurt during the mission. Mark could not have died multiple times while living on Mars. He could have not had to travel with one rover and all the way to the MAV. He could have not lived on limited water, while almost killing himself trying to create more water, while trying to maintain
[Transition: Let’s start by examining the cost benefits of exploring the ocean instead of outer space]
These are the reasons why I believe there should be more investment in space research and technology. It would be a time consuming and financially draining quest, but the pay off in new technology, applications, resources, and expansion opportunities make it a goal to strive for. As our rate of consumption of Earth’s natural resources continues to increase, it is imperative that we invest in the research of outer space as a possible solution to sustaining the human race.
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), was booming in the late 1960 's because the U.S. invested over 4.5 percent of the Federal Budget (Bolden). Unfortunately, in the recent years the Government has slashed funding for many of NASA’s projects in an attempt to cut back on the deficit and boost the economy. Despite the plummet in NASA 's budget, the program has proved that it 's prominence in the U.S., space programs like NASA continue to face difficulty in increasing its funds. Although, NASA leads Evidently, the government doesn 't think NASA is worth more than 0.47 percent of the federal budget. NASA is being underfunded and its funding should be substantially increased to make ends meet. This trend needs
Specific Purpose Statement: I would like to inform and condense the topic of space exploration into two major branches. These branches are unmanned and manned spaceflight.
7 months ago, on 18.12.2046, the eyes of millions of people were turned towards the sky when the rover of NASA, Nation, found intelligent life on Mars, found you.
The National Space Policy has undergone changes throughout its new creation on August 31, 2006, under both the Obama administration and the Bush administration. The act originally was established for overarching national policies that governed the conduct of U.S space activities. President Dwight Eisenhower said “More than by any other imaginative concept, the mind of man is aroused by the thought of exploring the mysteries of outer space. Through such exploration, man hopes to broaden his horizons, add to his knowledge, improve his way of living on Earth.” With that statement, is where our time in space begins.
When considering this topic, one might ask themselves why explore space? We explore space to compare other planets with the earth and to study the sun, to explore the universe while finding if intelligent life exists, for satellites to improve communications, weather forecasting, navigation, resource monitoring, and “to create a focal point for a new intellectual renaissance” (Ruzic).
For thousands of years, man had looked to the heavens and dreamed of going into space and walking on the distant moon. In 1969, the Saturn V rocket was part of the Apollo 11 mission carrying Neil Armstrong to became the very first to accomplish that dream. The famous quote by Neil Armstrong the moment he step foot on the surface of the moon was, “That’s one small step for a man, a giant leap for mankind”. Those words simply sparked my interest for outer space explorations and looking into worlds beyond our Earth. Like the billions of people before me, all we could do was dream and imagine the vast world outside our atmosphere as we gaze upon the sky. However, my curiosity grew and I wanted to know what it will take for us to go beyond the heavens and into the space. It is stated that in order to escape Earth’s gravitational pull, one must travel with velocity of 11.2km/s and is also known as the ‘escape velocity. Which is why in this exploration, I am going to explore and research on Tsiolkovsky rocket equation to discover what it takes travel into outer space and to our moon by observing the Saturn V’s ideal velocity during when it first took Neil Armstrong onto the moon and whether or not it takes that much speed in order to escape Earth’s gravity.
With issues like climate change, and population overgrowth, our species faces the risks of major extinction (4). Climate change has been a man-made problem of recent years that threatens our planet. It will take huge mitigations from current and future societies to even come close to reversing climate change. Not only that, but our population has been growing at an extremely alarming speed. At our current rate, our species may not be able to survive for much longer. This is where space exploration comes in. With the recent discovery of water on mars, and the finding of Kepler-78b, it is possible that mankind can prolong our existence. The possibility of interstellar travel seems to be an option or even a necessity if we wish to continue living. Populating another planet could help solve the population crisis and climate change simultaneously. Though, it seems we are not at that point currently, which is exactly why it is imperative that the government increase funding for space exploration. Now, even if inter-galactic habitation isn’t possible, space research helps us protect ourselves from asteroids and other threats, and could also be used to find other planetary resources. Nonetheless, it seems space research is of utmost significance if we want to continue living as a
Space exploration holds the key to new frontiers by unlocking the doorways to the expansion of human life to other planets and discovering new elements, particles, and life that may exist as well. Space exploration can further our understanding of the universe and the world that we live in. Continuing the global efforts of space exploration is imperative to the survival of the human race because due to the exponential growth of our population we will be in need of another planet that can sustain human life. Also, space exploration can be used to obtain more natural resources from other planets, asteroids, and moons. Another benefit to space exploration is the advancement in our technology is understanding of the universe. NASA has led to countless
Most people think that the costly downside to funding space exploration is a reason to avoid spending money on sciences and instead spend it on problems here on earth, but such funding for space exploration actually promotes economical as well as scientific benefits. Space exploration is an important expenditure for the high cost because of the potential for numerous benefits such as the possibility to find useful resources to cultivate, space exploration and satellites produce many thousands of jobs in our economy, and it creates and discovers newer and better technologies through research and development.