 |
| Courtesy NASA |
On April 1, 2026 the Artemis 2 launched into space. A collaborative mission between the US, Canada and the ESA. It will be the farthest that human beings have ever traveled.
It is the culmination of the cream of the crop that meritocracies and democracies can produce. Every Astronaut has multiple degrees, can pilot and probably has the most stable mental health imaginable.
This mission will test whether solar wings can sufficiently charge their on board battery among many other scientific experiments.
It is sadly overshadowed by world events and the usual bickering about why are we going to space when we have so many problems on earth? Because the amount of applicable science these public programs have given us from space blankets to prosthetics cannot be measured. And they do it on a shoestring budget.
One of the missions involves gathering data that relates to heliophysics. How the sun is affecting earth and potentially climate change. This mission was planned over a decade ago.
Forget what billionaires are rambling about. No one is colonizing any celestial object anytime soon. But mining asteroids or even Mars is a future possibility for us. This idea has been around since at least the 50s. Once robot machinery leaves earth's gravity fuel costs are minimal. Mars is red because it's iron heavy. It also has trapped water. Just some food for thought.
For anyone interested NASA has a great site on the mission and the bios of these astronauts as well as a live stream.
GODSPEED, Artemis 2. May you and the crew return home safely.
Being a science fiction fan I'm all for the space missions. Rather spend that money on that than war. But for any mining of asteroids or Mars, so much future technology has to be invented. Just the size of the space tankers to bring back ore and water for one. Really need that space elevator.
ReplyDeleteCodex: We're nowhere near it. In 200 years maybe? Was thinking about the space elevator:)
DeleteBut. The idea for solar panels unfolding came from scifi. Technology wasn't even available then. They sketched wings that looked like umbrellas or sails. ESA has really neat images, they basically developed the "motor".
I also hope Artemis 2 and its crew arrive home safely. I have forgotten already how long the trip is expected to take, not an overnight jaunt for sure.
ReplyDeleteCodex: It's amazing what collaboration can accomplish. So far it's running smoothly.
DeleteApart from the blocked toilet issue.
DeleteCodex fixed quickly they had to reset the computer. Going at 5000 miles per second though?
Delete