Future of space exploration
Near-term physical exploration missions, focused on obtaining new information about the Solar System, are planned and announced by both national and private organisations.
Tentative plans for crewed orbital and landing missions to the Moon and Mars to establish scientific outposts will later enable permanent and self-sufficient settlements.
Further exploration will potentially involve expedition and the other planets and settlements on the Moon, as well as establishing mining and fueling outposts, particularly in the asteroid belt.
Space exploration of the late 20th century was driven by competition between the Soviet Union and the United States to achieve the first spaceflight.
The availability of additional resources that can be mined from space could potentially expand the capabilities of humans and largely benefit society.
Leveraging these resources and moving high polluting industries to space could reduce the emissions on Earth and ultimately lead to finding cleaner energy sources.
NASA has also reported research investment in microbial vaccine development and microencapsulation of drugs for targeted and more efficient treatment delivery.
[10] Once safely landed, the solar powered rover will begin a seven-month (218-sol) mission to search for the existence of past life on Mars.
In order to make such an approach viable, three requirements need to be fulfilled: first, "a thorough asteroid survey to find thousands of nearby bodies suitable for astronauts to visit"; second, "extending flight duration and distance capability to ever-increasing ranges out to Mars"; and finally, "developing better robotic vehicles and tools to enable astronauts to explore an asteroid regardless of its size, shape or spin."
[24] It is the third medium-class mission in ESA's Cosmic Vision programme and named after the influential Greek philosopher Plato, the founding figure of Western philosophy, science and mathematics.
About 16 minutes after liftoff from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), Sriharikota, the rocket will inject the spacecraft into an orbit 300–400 km (190–250 mi) above Earth.
The current status of space-faring technology, including propulsion systems, navigation, resources and storage all present limitations to the development of human space exploration in the near future.
This top speed was achieved due to the Oberth effect where the spacecraft was sped up by a combination of the Sun's gravity and its own propulsion system.
On the more speculative side, the theoretical Alcubierre drive presents a mathematical solution for “faster-than-light” travel, but it would require the mass-Energy of Jupiter, not to mention the technical issues.
Without constant gravity, bones suffer disuse osteoporosis, and their mineral density falls 12 times faster than the average elderly adult's.
[38] Dehydration can cause kidney stones,[39] and constant hydro-static potential in zero-g can shift body fluids upwards and cause vision problems.
Behavioral issues, such as low morale, mood-swings, depression, and decreasing interpersonal interactions, irregular sleeping rhythms, and fatigue occur independently to the level of training, according to a set of NASA's social experiments.
[41] The most famous of which, Biosphere 2,[42] was a 2 year long, 8 person crew experiment in the 1990s, in an attempt to study human necessities and survival in an isolated environment.
The result of which were stressed interpersonal interactions and aloof behavior, including limiting and even ceasing contact between crew members,[41] along with failing to sustain a lasting air-recycling system and food supply.
Water can be produced through chemical reactions of Hydrogen and Oxygen in fuel cells,[44] and attempts and methods of growing vegetables in micro-gravity are being developed and will continue to be researched.
For this project, NASA's goal is to implement stereo vision for collision avoidance in space systems to work with and support autonomous operations in a flight environment.
This technology uses two cameras within its operating system that have the same view, but when put together offer a large range of data that gives a binocular image.
Autonomy would be able to quickly respond upon encountering an unforeseen event, especially in deep space exploration where communication back to Earth would take too long.
Traveling to Mars and farther could encourage the development of advances in medicine, health, longevity, transportation, communications that could have applications on Earth.
Long term gradual effects from time in space include Bone atrophy from a gravity scarce environment that limits the flow of minerals throughout the body.
Company Advancements in Commercialization In 2017 Elon Musk announced the development of rocket travel to transport humans from one city to another in under an hour.
Elon has challenged SpaceX to improve travel across the world through his reusable rocket propulsion to send up passengers on a suborbital trajectory to their destination.
[2] The company Virgin Galactic with CEO Sir Richard Branson is developing another method to reach planes through Aircraft propulsion.
Blue Origin intends the rocket's reusability to last 25 flights into space alleviating costs increasing the possibility of commercialized travel.
Further developments on this project include a Human Landing system which are detachable living quarters intended to attach and depart from the Blue Moon Lunar Lander.
