CLMN | Are we going beyond the Moon this time?
Over the past year, the public’s interest in space has seen what I find to be a very pleasant spike. During this year we’ve had a successful rover landing on Mars, the launch of NuSTAR, aimed at finding black holes and studying supernovas, as well as amazing advancements in the private sector, which could lead eventually to a resurgence in space faring (now even energy-drink companies are funding missions to further push aerospace technology).
President Obama cleared a couple of years ago in the United States what is known as the '2010 NASA Authorization Act', effectively boosting their budget in light of plans for future missions. However, apart from Curiosity and NuSTAR, as well as regular visits to the International Space Station, those future missions were shrouded in secrecy.A rumor a couple of months back about a new space station, situated at Lagrange point 2 (orbiting on the dark side of the moon), is slowly being brought back into play. It is no secret that they have big ideas about sending missions to asteroids and even one manned mission to Mars between 2015 and 2030. The buzz around the space community seems to point towards this, and an orbiting space station farther than the moon would be a perfect gateway for missions to the confines of our Solar System. With an eagerness towards space exploration, I for one am excited to be able to experience this in my lifetime. And you should too, because when we look towards the sky, we all see the same, and our differences suddenly don’t seem that important anymore.
Discussie