EXPLORING SPACE: THE ADVENTURE BEYOND THE CLOUDS
Astronauts are proof that the sky is not the limit, contrary to what my teacher told me when I was young in a bid to motivate me. I sang softly with my peers, “Twinkle, Twinkle, little stars. How I wonder what you are”. I really wondered because I would gaze wide-eyed at the diamonds in the sky at night.
My science teacher spoke about the solar system and the milky way in secondary school. I learned that there is the sun, and it has eight planets that revolve around it. I learned gravity, weightlessness, and of course, history. Yuri Gagarin and Neil Armstrong are names I can never forget because I admired them and every other person who has left our Planet Earth to explore the universe.
“Our solar system consists of our star, the Sun, and everything bound to it by gravity — the planets Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune; dwarf planets such as Pluto; dozens of moons; and millions of asteroids, comets, and meteoroids. Beyond our solar system, we have discovered thousands of planetary systems orbiting other stars in the Milky Way.” — NASA.
Then I discovered there were more than nine planets in Space! What?! I was honestly going to tell them to explore Uranus for aliens. I was convinced, and it just made sense with some other theory I had in my head that the coldest planet hosted them. Scientists and Astronauts have found other planets in Space, some of which are called exoplanets, and other exciting sensations like Bootes void, Nebula, Constellation, The Alpha Centauri system, etc. To mention a few:
- Ceres: It is a dwarf planet in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.
- Callisto: a large moon orbiting Jupiter.
- Kepler-22b: This is an exoplanet, and they call it the super-earth.
- Sirius: The brightest star in Earth’s night sky.
Do you think we are the only ones in the universe?
“We stand at a crossroads in the search for life. We’ve found thousands of planets in our Milky Way galaxy, a large fraction of them in Earth’s size range and orbiting in their stars’ “habitable zones”. We know the galaxy likely holds trillions of planets. Our telescopes in Space, on the ground, and remote-sensing technology, have grown ever more powerful. Yet so far, the only life we know of is right here at home. For the moment, we’re staring into the void, hoping someone is staring back.” — NASA.
I would have asked us to shout into Space. Hopefully, someone might hear us. (I am Nigerian, worse, I am a Yoruba girl, and shouting is part of our Nationality, especially my culture, so don’t blame me). But Dr. Christopher S. Baird said:
“Sound does not travel at all in space. The vacuum of outer space has essentially zero air. Because sound is just vibrating air, space has no air to vibrate and therefore no sound. If you are sitting in a space ship and another space ship explodes, you would hear nothing”.
NASA recently sent pixelated images of a naked woman and man waving “hello” in a bid to attract extraterrestrial life. They also included a photo of gravity and DNA. Although, this is not the first type of message sent out. Others have a drawing of the hydrogen atom and a map of the Earth. Hopefully, they get these messages and set to find us too.
Astronauts were the only ones who could go to Space some years ago; now, space tourism is an official thing for interested people who want to go on excursions in Space. People have gone on space tourism as far back as the 80s.
“In the 1980s, McDonnell Douglas engineer Charles Walker became the first non-government individual to fly in Space when his company bought him a seat on three NASA space shuttle missions. In 2001, American entrepreneur Dennis Tito dished out a reported $20 million to fly on a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station (ISS) and spend eight days floating in microgravity.” — MIT Technology Review.
What of recent times?
After decades of development and several serious accidents, three companies — SpaceX, Blue Origin, and Virgin Galactic — launched their first tourist flights in 2021. In October, William Shatner rode a Blue Origin vehicle to the edge of Space. Former NFL star and Good Morning America host Michael Strahan took a similar ride in December. Even NASA, which was once hostile to space tourism, has released a pricing policy for private astronaut missions, offering to bring someone to orbit for around $55 million” — MIT Technology Review.
Well, $55 million is a lot of money. The price tag depends on various factors, from the capital it takes to build a ship to the altitude the spaceship is traveling — a much higher altitude is expensive than sub-orbital trips or a trip to the International Space Station (ISS). Elon Musk’s SpaceX is the first private company to launch a ship safely from Earth orbit, and also, the company has eased the cost of building a spaceship by landing the most expensive part of the rocket for reuse in 2010.
Companies like Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Virgin Atlantic, and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin work on commercial space travel. Virgin Atlantic has promised to go on short suborbital trips to Space — you experience rocket propulsion and small weightlessness before returning to Earth. All these for $250k (£190k).
“Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which in May 2020 became the first private company to launch a human crew to Earth orbit aboard the Crew Dragon, plans to offer stays on the ISS for $35k (£27k) per night. SpaceX is now prototyping its huge Starship vehicle, designed to take 100 passengers from Earth to as far afield as Mars for around $20k (£15k) per head. Musk stated in January that he hoped to be operating 1,000 Starships by 2050” — Paul Parsons.
The price above is a significant reduction in the cost of space travel compared to what it was years ago. Hopefully, we will get comfortable with the technology regarding price and risk soon, as we have with airplanes.
Apart from the rich flexing on space tourism and we trying to find life in Space, what are the benefits of spending multi-millions of dollars exploring Space?
Scientists have carried out different research projects that benefit humanity, like studying fluid dynamics and plant genetics. We become away from what is beyond Earth and the potential threat to our planet. Satellites help us predict and provide data on climate change, weather, pollution, and natural disasters. Space technology may even provide us insights to efficiently harness solar power — a remarkable feat toward green energy.
“We’re now all too aware that global calamities can and do happen — for instance, climate change and the giant asteroid that smashed into the Earth 65 million years ago, leading to the total extinction of the dinosaurs” — Paul Parsons.
Navigation satellites provide GPS technology for location services and tracking systems to produce signals. Maps use space technology. Telecommunication is also another use of satellites. It allows us to connect to phones, televisions, radios, and the internet.
Another great use of space technology is Asteroid mining. Scientists have discovered that asteroids are a great source of metals like iron, nickel, gold, and platinum. It helps relieve the Earth of the damaging impact of mining on its environment and humans — its ecosystem.
I wish I were born centuries later; I would love to find out if we figured out Space, if we found life beyond Earth, if space tourism became easy as going from London to Ireland, did we sometimes go for tea on other planets? Did they come to visit us occasionally on Earth too? Did life eventually become multi-planetary? Were extraterrestrial beings friendly, or did we always fight like in the sci-fi movies?
Sadly, most of us would never see the wonders beyond our Earth in person — it could be due to cost or fear of the risk involved. But, till I can tick space tourism off my bucket list, let’s go star gazing, my friend, or explore Space with Extended Reality. After all, that is the mission of the Immersive technologies — to bring us other realities.
