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Human Space Exploration
Humans have always been interested in exploring and in the 1950’s and 1960’s expanded
exploration to outer space. The beginning of space exploration was driven by a space race
between the Soviet Union and the United States. After the first 20 years of exploration, focus
shifted from competition to cooperation as everyone came together, as with the International
Space Station. The European Union, Japan, India, China, Russia, and Japan have all planned for
future manned space missions to the moon and Mars during the 21st century.
On October 4th, 1957 the Soviet Union shocked the world by launching the unmanned
orbital Sputnik 1 satellite into space. This event was not only a monumental feat for mankind,
but started a competitive space race between the Soviet Union and the United States. Two
months later the American space program rushed an attempt at launching the Vanguard satellite,
which proved unsuccessful. The Soviet's then achieved another milestone by putting the first
animal in space, the dog Laika. The United States finally had success on January 31, 1958 when
they orbited Explorer 1 with a Juno rocket. At the height of the space race the Russian
cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space on April 12, 1961. Within a month of
Gagarin's historic flight, the U.S. put Alan Shepard aboard the Mercury-Redstone 3, and
achieved a suborbital flight. Despite the Soviet success President John F. Kennedy decided
America could still win the space race by putting a man on the Moon. In one of his most famous
speeches Kennedy declared, "Before this decade is out, we will land a man on the Moon and
return him safely to the Earth." On July 20th, 1969 Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin
landed on the Moon aboard Apollo 11. With Armstrong’s words to a world audience, "One small
step for man, one giant leap for mankind," the United States won the space race with the Soviet
Union.
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After several more successful Apollo missions to the moon, the world decided to come
together and develop the International Space Station (ISS), a habitable artificial satellite in low
Earth orbit. As the focus shifted from bitter competition and rivalry, the United States and Russia
agreed to jointly design and develop the components of the space station. In 1993 partially built
components for a Soviet/Russian space station, the proposed American Freedom, and the
proposed European Columbus merged into a single multinational program. The ISS is a research
laboratory suited for conducting experiments and testing spacecraft systems and equipment for
missions to the Moon and Mars. The Space Station has been in continuous use for over 12 years.
Over the years the station has been visited by astronauts from 15 different nations. The ISS
includes five different space agencies including NASA, the Russian Federal Space Agency,
JAXA (Japan), ESA (European Union), and CSA (Canada). The Space Station is shared by many
nations but is divided into only two sections, the Russian orbital segment and the United States
orbital segment. The future of the ISS is funded through 2020, and may operate through 2028.
Humans have barely touched the possibilities of future space exploration. NASA already
plans the return of humans to the Moon by 2020 and possible visits to Mars soon after. For
humans to explore other planets, we will need to gain more knowledge and expertise by staying
on the Moon for extended amounts of time. The Moon will eventually become a base of
operations for all space travel. Humans will need to learn how to replenish supplies, and create
new ones out of the local materials on the Moon. For humans to be able to explore deeper space,
these basic skills will be essential. In the near future governments won't be the only way to get to
space. Private spaceflight already includes payloads like communication satellites, satellite
television, satellite radio, and will soon include astronaut transport and suborbital orbital and
orbital space tourism. Within 15 years it is estimated that nearly 30,000 people a year will travel
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to space. President Barack Obama announced, "100 percent committed to the mission of NASA
and its future" as he outlined plans for federal spending to bring more private companies into
space exploration following the soon-to-end space shuttle program. Entrepreneurs have already
been dreaming and designing space systems around the world. In the future numerous projects of
orbital and suborbital manned flights will exist. Several companies are already pursuing space
tourism like Golden Spike, who announced plans to privately transport people to the surface of
the Moon and back for $750 million per passenger as early as 2020. The space industry has also
been planning another thing, inhabiting Mars. The plan is to first send robots to the Moon to
build a city for humans to inhabit. The next step would be to send additional robots to repeat the
process on Mars. After the city is complete people could permanently inhabit and colonize Mars.
NASA has already found evidence of water and life on Mars so it is not out of the question that
soon enough our future generations could be living on the Red planet.
Over the years human curiosity has brought us many places, but during the mid 20th
century it brought us beyond Earth and into outer space. The competition with the Soviets helped
to accelerate and focus our space exploration and the leadership of President Kennedy helped
America win the space race by putting men on the moon. Once the world realized that we can do
greater things together we collaborated and came up with the International Space Station. Space
entrepreneurs have started to design and build commercial space flights for anyone with enough
money to buy a seat on. People have already come up with plans to build a permanent base on
the Moon as early as 2020 and inhabit Mars soon after. Exploring is in our blood, and the need to
go further and further will never stop. Deep space exploration is going to happen; it's just a
matter of when. It is certain that future generations will eventually be occupying another planet
in our solar system.
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Works Consulted
Lind, Rocky. "Beyond Earth." NASA, 13 February 2013. Web. 13 February 2013.
Schiff, Adam. "Congress Approves Bill Supporting Human Space Exploration." Fedsmith, 3
January 2013. Web. 13 February 2013.
Smith, Cameron. "How Humans Will Evolve on Multigenerational Space Exploration Missions."
Scientific America. 13 February 2013. Web. 13 February 2013.
“Space exploration." Wikipedia. 8 February 2013. Web. 13 February 2013.