Landings on the moon, life on Mars and many space probes may be just around the corner, predicts a professor at the Danish Institute for Space Research and Space Technology (DTU Space).
The other day, on October 4, 2017, exactly 60 years have passed since the "Sputnik" was sent into space. This was the beginning of a space adventure that continues to this day, and one of the most recent events was the farewell to the Cassini space probe, which completed its year-long journey around Saturn.
But how far have we actually come in these 60 years?
And how far will we get in spacefaring in another 60 years?
In one of our podcasts, we asked space experts Henrik and Helle Stub, who have been following events for forty years, about three of the most important points in the history of astronautics, and how these events influenced her.
Professor and head of the DTU Space department, John Leif Jørgensen, who, among other things, created the star chamber for NASA, tells in a podcast how we have progressed in the technological development of astronautics in relation to these three peaks.
But before succumbing to the desire to uncover the greatest moment in the history of astronautics, we first focus on the second and third places.
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Development Peak Three: The Importance of Space Stations
Today we have an international space station, the ISS, which is considered a peace project as it is a collaboration of several of the world's largest space powers other than China.
But before that, each country had its own space stations, if they had enough funds for this. One such country, the most advanced, was the Russians, then the Soviet Union, which had several space stations, including Salyut and Mir.
The knowledge gained from Mir, in particular, has strongly influenced our current view of astronautics.
Before him, scientists did not believe that sending people into space could entail any problems, but it turned out that this could have serious consequences for the human body.
“It was a big surprise, because then people did not think that being in space was so dangerous or unpleasant. We now know that weightlessness causes serious problems by weakening bones,”says Henrik Stub on the Videnskab.dk podcast.
Man is completely unsuitable for long journeys in space, which has limited manned space flights.
However, sending people into space was not only harmful, as it gave knowledge about human physiology.
“Practical experiments are indeed planned to investigate whether life-prolonging treatments can be carried out in zero gravity. This could, for example, improve the quality of life of people operated on for circulatory system diseases and increase their chances of survival,”says Jon Jorgensen.
Peak Two 2: Exploration of the Solar System
Space probe exploration of the solar system, according to Henrik and Helle Stub, is the second most important achievement in the history of astronautics.
This is due, in part, to the fact that many of the knowledge that space probes gave us influenced our entire understanding of the solar system.
Previously, people believed that Venus and Mars were habitable planets, because they were so close to Earth. It may have been a little hot on Venus, but it was just something like the tropics.
This tropical heat, as it turned out thanks to space probes, reaches 500 degrees.
And Mars turned out to be quite hostile towards humans. With the help of space probes, humans have discovered that the planet is cold as ice, covered in a dusty desert and exposed to ionizing rays, making it not particularly habitable.
Is there life in space?
However, space probes have brought us more than just disappointments about potentially habitable planets. They also gave us hope to discover life in space.
According to Jon Jorgensen, for example, Mars hasn't always been this uninhabitable. In fact, for as long as 1.5 billion years, the planet could have been home to some kind of life.
“Everyone is convinced that we will certainly find traces of life. I predict that we will find the life that still exists up there. Because we know from the information from the probes that there is ice and liquid water on Mars. If worms existed on Mars, then they should still be there. We just need to find them,”says Jon Jorgensen on the podcast.
Whether life exists on Mars will hopefully be revealed when NASA launches a mission to our red neighboring planet in 2020.
We will live under the sea on the Jupiter moon
NASA's next target will be to visit Jupiter's moon Europa in 2025.
And here, too, Jon Jorgensen is convinced that we will find traces of life. He explains this by the fact that NASA has previously found molecules that appear to be amino acids (organic compounds that are central to all living organisms) on this moon. That is, the very amino acids that we are all made of.
Not only can there be life on Europe, it can still be a Plan B article if the Earth dies.
“Since Mars is exposed to too high levels of ionizing radiation, it is actually easier to fly to Europa, drill a hole in the ice and live underwater. That is, if we can breathe, which is technically possible now, it just needs money,”says Jon Jorgensen.
Growth Peak # 1: Moon Landing
And so we got to the most important achievement: landing on the moon.
But since humans first landed on our moon in 1969, it has remained pretty deserted. And this despite the fact that technology has developed explosively since that moment.
It seems strange to many that no one has ever been to the moon since then, but Jon Jorgensen explains that today we no longer have the technology for that.
“The Saturn 5 rocket that landed on the moon was terribly expensive because it had to be able to do it all alone. She had to climb through the atmosphere, fly to the moon, send the capsule down, pick up people and then fly through the atmosphere again. All this is really expensive to do,”says Jon Jorgensen in a podcast.
Three-stage rockets to the moon
Today, the situation can be approached from the other end in order to reduce the cost of the process, he says. Everything can turn into a three-stage trip, during which you will change the spaceship three times:
1. First, you are on a launch vehicle from Earth ascending 400 kilometers to the space station.
2. There you change it to a slower but more efficient spacecraft, which will fly 360 thousand kilometers to the next space station, which will be located close to the Moon.
3. Due to the fact that the force of gravity on the moon is relatively low, from the last space station to land on the moon, you will fly in a small spaceship, explains Jon Jorgensen.
You can listen to Jon Jorgensen explaining how two spaceships meet, if, for example, you are going to change transport at one of those space stations that he predicts will appear over time.
Make travel to the moon cheaper
That is, being divided into smaller pieces, travel to the moon will become cheaper, since not one ship will be used, which must complete everything, but several, each of which has one task.
Space stations would be used simultaneously as research stations.
And according to Jon Jorgesen, the value of what can be found on the moon will be so great that it can pay for the entire venture. This will also make tickets cheaper.
SpaceX and states must invest in space exploration
In the 1960s, space exploration was over-invested as it was the subject of a political race. This meant that expensive technologies were used, and we have been stuck on them since that time.
These technologies are so expensive to develop further that no one wants to do it, but according to Jon Jorgesen, more government money needs to be invested in space research to bring prices down.
Booster rockets have cost billions of crowns, but over the past five years, their price has dropped by a third. One reason is that commercial firm SpaceX, with private partners and sponsors, is supporting the development of spacecraft.
Increased competition has led to falling prices, which, according to Jon Jorgensen, means that so much money has started to fall into research budgets that they have the opportunity to earn money.
Vacation on the Moon?
Potentially lower prices for space travel make it increasingly possible for us to pay for a space tour.
“I suppose that already in 2025 a commercial market for such offers will open, and we will be able to fly to the moon,” predicts Jon Jorgensen.
As for future potential vacations on Mars, this, in his opinion, is a matter of a more distant future. According to his calculations, travel of this type in the next 60 years will be mainly carried out for scientific purposes.
Thus, we have no choice but to content ourselves with the fact that we can spend our next vacation on the moon!
Did you know?
Despite the fact that today we have much better computers, technology, materials and even fuel than we had during the dawn of astronautics, many things still remain the same as before. For example, launch vehicles that are now being used to transport astronauts to the ISS.
These are actually practically the same launch vehicles that were designed and built in the Soviet Union at the very beginning of the space race.
Launch vehicles would then be so expensive that even today they save on investments in this area. Therefore, space tours can also help raise money to develop new rockets.
Agnes Amanda Vesth Rasmussen