American Space Odyssey2014

Contents

Contents1Introduction.2Chapter IOrigins.4 I.1 Birth of a Dream....4I.2 The Beginnings of the Space Race...5Chapter IIMoon Race...6 II.1 Project Gemini...6II.2 Apollo Program..8 II.2.1 Apollo 1 Disaster.......10 II.2.2 Apollo 11...11Chapter IIIA New Era...14III.1 Manned Dreams III.1.1 Space Shuttle....14 III.1.2 International Space Station..........17III.2 Solar System and Beyond..20 III.2.1 The Conquest of the Solar System........20 III.2 .2 Alien Universe ....23Chapter IVFuture Dreams.25Conclusions27Bibliography..28

Introduction

Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before. Narrated by William Shatner at the beginning of every episode of Star Trek these words have profund implications.But why space exploration is important? Humanity's interest in the heavens has been universal and enduring. Humans are driven to explore the unknown, discover new worlds, push the boundaries of our scientific and technical limits, and then push further. The intangible desire to explore and challenge the boundaries of what we know and where we have been has provided benefits to our society for centuries.Human space exploration helps to address fundamental questions about our place in the Universe and the history of our solar system. Through addressing the challenges related to human space exploration we expand technology, create new industries, and help to foster a peaceful connection with other nations. A lot of people think we should give up space exploration, largely due to cost. But money spent on space exploration does not nebulously float away into the galaxy. It creates new technologies and products, as well as new jobs and businesses. So maybe you could live without air or water, but would you give up your computer, the GPS navigating system in your car, or your cell phone? Just within the next few years, the space program is expected to improve our knowledge of solar energy power, cryogenics, and robotics that are expected to offer great improvements in health care, energy and the environment, everyday technology, and many other areas. In my humble opinion, space exploration is important not only to humanitys curiosity of the great beyond or tehnogical development, but it is also important for the future of the Earth and all of us living on it. Nowadays humanity is facing great challenges like overpopulation, running out of natural resources or even extinction events. Earth history teach us that not always our planet was a good place to live on.Supervulcanos, comet or asteroid strikes, glaciations, pandemics, these kind of events happened often on Earth. Human extinction is a reality, maybe not tommorow nor the next century but it will happen if we dont do something.A famous scientist, Stephen Hawking says our population and our use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially, along with our technical ability to change the environment for good or ill. But our genetic code still carries the selfish and aggressive instincts that were of survival advantage in the past. It will

be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million. Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain lurking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space. Also we must not cast aside the financial side of space exploration.From 1958 to 2013, NASA budget was estimated to be around 526 billion dollars. By way of comparison, total spending over one year by the United States Department of Defense is 553 billion dollars.So this means that space exploration is not that expensive but wars are, both financial and humanly speaking.Space exploration offers great opportunities for future business.Domains like private space tourism and asteroid mining are in development. Virgin Galactic an American-based commercial spaceflight company plans to provide suborbital spaceflights to space tourists.With over 600 people were reported to have signed up for a flight, at a ticket price of 200,000 dollars per person, so this is a financial success. Also asteroid mining is a great way to make space money. In 1997 it was speculated that a relatively small metallic asteroid with a diameter of 1.6 km contains more than 20 trillion dollars worth of industrial and precious metals.NASA and other private companies are now developing technologies for asteroid mining. We humans thrive on new experiences. Space is probably the ultimate "new experience," and one of the best places for humanity to turn to keep learning. When Christopher Columbus wanted to sail west to reach the Indies, he trawled Europe for patronage. At the time, it was considered a fools errand. Eventually people realized that Columbus had transformed the course of human history. Space exploration is similar, in as much as some people think it's futile. It may only be in the future that people appreciate what a huge impact it's had on society. Who knows what incredible discoveries are just around the corner, what revolutionary new technologies may appear as a result of space exploration and how this will change the course of humanity future.

Chapter IOrigins

I.1 Birth of a Dream After World War II, the Army, Navy, and Air Force carried out separate missile programs for many years. This resulted in much of the research being done three times, and as a result this was very inefficient. The Navy wanted to develop missiles fired underwater from submarines, which could extend reach to intercontinental ranges. The Air Force concentrated more of its research on long range bombardment and JATO units. The Army meanwhile saw missiles as an extension of artillery and it argued that it should be given control of long range missile developments on this basis. Because these three different powers were trying to compete with each other, there was much time, money, and effort wasted in this. It was this counter-productive competition that led to the birth of NASA. Operation Paperclip was the code name for the Army's rocket program. For this, the Army hired von Braun and the other Peenmunde scientists to pick up their work where they left off in Germany. At first they worked on captured V-2 rockets, modifying them to collect data on the upper atmosphere, but soon they were developing their own rockets. Using these V-2's, they built on the technology and actually reached the edge of space. None of the rockets orbited Earth, however, they just passed through space. Altitudes of over 150 km, well outside the atmosphere, were reached when the V-2 rockets were made to carry smaller American "Wac-corpral" rockets, which fired when the V2 reached its peak altitude.Each of the three branches of United States military all made some progress in rocketry, and all roughly paralleled each other. For the most part, rocket technology made steady increases in ability, size, range, altitude, and technology in the years between World War II and before NASA. Then, United States intelligence discovered that the Russians had developed a large program for ICBMs. Russia, who recently detonated their first atomic weapons, now had the means to deliver nuclear weapons to the United States. This, together with the fact that the Russian rocket program was probably further ahead than the American's, meant that America had to develop their missiles much more quickly. The Army and Navy did work jointly for a time to develop a medium range ballistic missile. This program ultimately produced the Jupiter missiles, the largest American missiles at the time. These Jupiter missiles were developed as a modification of what was known as the "Redstone" rocket, developed by the Army's Redstone arsenal. The Jupiter rockets were theoretically able to place a satellite in orbit, and on its first flight it reached an altitude of almost seven hundred miles.In an early effort to consolidate the rocket efforts, the United States transferred the Jupiter projects from the Army to the Air Force. As the Air Force worked on the Jupiter rockets, the used one to launch a payload of two monkeys (named Table and Baker)

seems read hundred miles up above the ground. They were one of the first biological payloads to reach space. Although the Army had been stripped of its ability to research rockets, the Navy still did work on their own long range rocket, the Polaris. This rocket was designed to carry a small nuclear warhead a long distance and to be fired from a submarine.While the Navy was developing the Polaris missile, America gave top priority to the Atlas missile program. This program was intended to, and succeeded in, develop America's first ICBMs. This Atlas program was headed by the Air Force, and completed its first successful test in 1958. on it first test, it reached a range of 2,500 miles. After this first successful Atlas, the Atlas A, America developed several more Atlases, from Atlas B to Atlas F. Other missiles developed during these years included Thor, Poseidon, Titan, and the Minuteman. Despite these successes, America was still wasting valuable resources because several different organizations were independently developing rockets. The President's scientific advisory committee realized this and recommended that a central agency should be created to lead the scientific exploration of space, manned and unmanned. This agency would be 9 military, but still would develop Sciences and Technology for military purposes. President Eisenhower endorsed this recommendation and sent it to Congress on the second of April 1950 draw and the National Aeronautics and Space acts became law at the end of July. T. Keith, president of the Space Institute of Technology, was appointed to be the first administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA for short. NASA slowly took over the nation's rocket research programs. First it took over the National Advisory Committee for aeronautics, a committee created before World War One to research aviation. This was the first of many organizations absorbed by NASA, and soon NASA took over the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from the Army. The next major addition to NASA came on 14 January 1960, when the presence transferred the Army's ballistic missile agency to NASA's control. This transfer included Werner von Braun, and the rocket research team from Peenmunde. Soon after this, NASA received a budget of almost one billion dollars, which was approved by President Eisenhower after he visited the George C. Marshall Space Flight Center.

I.2 The Beginnings of the Space Race On October 4, 1957, the world was greeted by the beeping sound of Sputnik 1. This little satellite was the first object to be successfully launched into earth orbit. As it streaked overhead, Americans marveled at the site and cringed in their hearts. Tremendous fear gripped US military

leaders over the significance of Sputnik. If the Soviets could put a satellite into space, then certainly they could put nuclear missiles up there and aim them at their nation. Unless they got into the race, they were doomed to be left behind and play a diplomatic negotiating game with less than good cards. German scientist and engineer Werner Von Braun was tasked with the job of getting US into the race and beating the Russians.This marks the beginning of the Space Race.Explorer 1

The result of the Sputnik satellite launch was an immediate sense of need by the Americans to catch the Russians. So in 1958, US launched his first satellite called Explorer I and it discovered a dense belt of radiation surrounding the Earth. Today we call this magnetic field the Van Allen Belt.But the dimension of the Space Race will change and on 12 April 1961, USSR will put the first human in orbit, Yuri Gagarin in his Vostok spacecraft.This was a great a accomplishment and US seems to lose the race.Because of this, NASA started Project Mercury, manned space flight became the next goal. Alan Shepard became the first American in space on a suborbital flight three weeks after Gagarin. John Glenn, the third Mercury astronaut to fly, became the first American to reach orbit on February 20, 1962, but only after the Soviets had launched a second cosmonaut, Gherman Titov, into a day long flight in August 1961. Mercury had a total of 20 unmanned launches as a part of the development of the project. This also involved test animals, most famously the chimpanzees Ham and Enos.All 6 manned launches were successful. When the project ended in May 1963, the Americans' NASA program was still behind the Soviet Space Program, but the gap was seen as closing. The race to the Moon began.CHAPTER IIMoon RaceII.1 Project Gemini Project Gemini was conducted between projects Mercury and Apollo, with ten manned flights occurring in 1965 and 1966. Its objective was to develop space travel techniques in support of Apollo, which had the goal of landing men on the Moon. Gemini was designed by a Canadian, Jim Chamberlin, formerly the chief aerodynamicist on the Avro Arrow fighter interceptor program with Avro Canada. Chamberlin joined NASA along with 25 senior Avro engineers after cancellation of the Arrow program, and became head of the U.S. Space Task

Groups engineering division in charge of Gemini. The prime contractor was McDonnell Aircraft, which had also been the prime contractor for the Project Mercury capsule. There were two unmanned Gemini flights in 1964 and 1965, followed by ten manned flights in 1965 and 1966. All were launched by Titan II launch vehicles. Project Gemini marked some firsts in US space exploration history:-Edward H. White became the first American to make an extravehicular activity or space walk on June 3, 1965 during Gemini 4.Ed White space walk

- Gemini 6A and 7 accomplished the first space rendezvous in December 1965, and Gemini 7 set a 14-day endurance record.- Gemini 8 achieved the first space docking with an unmanned Agena Target Vehicle.- Gemini 11 set a manned Earth orbital altitude record of 1,369.0 km in September 1966, using the propulsion system of its Agena target vehicle. This record still stands.- Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin on Gemini 12 became the first space traveller to prove that useful work could be done outside a spacecraft without life-threatening exhaustion. NASA selected McDonnell Aircraft, which had been the prime contractor for the Project Mercury capsule, to build the Gemini capsule in 1961 and the first capsule was delivered in 1963. The spacecraft was 5.8 m long and 3.0 m wide with a launch weight of 3,850 kg. The Gemini capsule first flew with a crew on March 23, 1965. Gemini was the first manned spacecraft to include an onboard computer, the Gemini Guidance Computer, to facilitate management and control of mission maneuvers. Unlike Mercury, the Gemini used in-flight radar and an artificial horizondevices similar to those used in the aviation industry. As launch vehicle NASA choose Titan II. The Titan II had debuted in 1962 as the Air Force's second-generation ICBM to replace the Atlas. By using hypergolic fuels, it could be stored for long periods of time and be easily readied for launch in addition to being a simpler design with fewer components, the only caveat being that the propellant mix was extremely toxic compared to the Atlas's liquid oxygen. However, the Titan had considerable difficulty being man-rated due to early problems with pogo oscillation.The Titan II rocket that carried the Gemini spacecraft was guided by its own (separate) ASC-15 guidance computer. All Gemini flights were launched from Cape Canaveral. As for crew selection, Deke Slayton, as director of flight crew operations, had the main role in the choice of crews for the Gemini program. Slayton intended for first choice of mission commands to be given to the four remaining active astronauts of the Mercury Seven: Alan Shepard, Grissom, Cooper, and Schirra.In late 1963, Slayton selected Shepard and Stafford for Gemini 3, McDivitt and White for Gemini 4, and Schirra and Young for Gemini 5. The backup crew for Gemini 3 was Grissom and Borman, who were also slated for Gemini 6, to be the first long-duration mission. Finally Conrad and Lovell were assigned as the backup crew for Gemini 4. In January 1969, NASA prepared for the US Congress an estimate of the costs for projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. This estimate gave the cost of Project Gemini as 1.3 billion dollars, broken down to 797.4 million dollars for spacecraft, 409.8 million dollars for launch vehicles, and 76.2 million dollars for support.II.2 Apollo program The aim of the Apollo programme was to land the first person on the Moon. Six Apollo missions landed astronauts on the Moon, the last in December 1972. In these six spaceflights, 12 men walked on the Moon.However, when the program was announced, in 1961, only two people had actually been in space. Scientists were faced with a daunting task - to construct a rocket powerful enough to reach the Moon and a spacecraft that could travel there and back. The Apollo program was conceived early in 1960, during the Eisenhower administration, as a follow-up to America's Mercury program. While the Mercury capsule could only support one astronaut on a limited Earth orbital mission, the Apollo spacecraft was to be able to carry three astronauts on a circumlunar flight and eventually to a lunar landing. The program was named after the Greek god of light, music, and the sun by NASA manager Abe Silverstein, who later said that "I was naming the spacecraft like I'd name my baby." Silverstein chose the name at home one evening, early in 1960, because he felt "Apollo riding his chariot across the Sun was appropriate to the grand scale of the proposed program."While NASA went ahead with planning for Apollo, funding for the program was far from certain given Eisenhower's ambivalent attitude to manned spaceflight. In November 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected president after a campaign that promised American superiority over the Soviet Union in the fields of space exploration and missile defense. Using space exploration as a symbol of national prestige, he warned of a "missile gap" between the two nations, pledging to make the US not "first but, first and, first if, but first period.Despite Kennedy's rhetoric, he did not immediately come to a decision on the status of the Apollo program once he became president. He knew little about the technical details of the space program, and was put off by the massive financial commitment required by a manned Moon landing.When Kennedy's newly appointed NASA Administrator James E. Webb requested a 30 percent budget increase for his agency, Kennedy supported an acceleration of NASA's large booster program but deferred a decision on the broader issue. On April 20, Kennedy sent a memo to Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, asking Johnson to look into the status of America's space program, and into programs that could offer NASA the opportunity to catch up. Johnson responded approximately one week later, concluding that "we are neither making maximum effort nor achieving results necessary if this country is to reach a position of leadership.His memo concluded that a manned Moon landing was far enough in the future that it was likely the United States would achieve it first.On May 25, 1961, twenty days after the first US manned spaceflight Freedom 7, Kennedy proposed the Apollo program to Congress in a special address to a joint session:I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind, or more important in the long-range exploration of space; and none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish. But landing men on the Moon by the end of 1969 required the most sudden burst of technological creativity, and the largest commitment of resources (24 billion dollars) ever made by any nation in peacetime. At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities. Once Kennedy had defined a goal, the Apollo mission planners were faced with the challenge of designing a set of flights that could meet it while minimizing risk to human life, cost, and demands on technology and astronaut skill: Preliminary design studies of Apollo spacecraft began in 1960 as a three-man command module supported by one of several service modules providing propulsion and electrical power, sized for use in various possible missions, such as: shuttle service to a space station, circumlunar flight, or return to Earth from a lunar landing. Once the Moon landing goal became official, detailed design began of the Command/Service Module (CSM) in which the crew would spend the entire direct-ascent mission and lift off from the lunar surface for the return trip. The final choice of lunar orbit rendezvous changed the CSM's role to a translunar ferry used to transport the crew and a new spacecraft, the Lunar Excursion Module (LEM, later shortened to Lunar Module, LM) which would take two men to the lunar surface and return them to the CSM. The Command Module (CM) was the conical crew cabin, designed to carry three astronauts from launch to lunar orbit and back to an Earth ocean landing. The module was 3.48 mtall, 3.91 m in diameter, and weighed approximately 5,560 kg.

The Lunar Module (LM) was designed to descend from lunar orbit to land two astronauts on the Moon and take them back to orbit to rendezvous with the Command Module. Not designed to fly through the Earth's atmosphere or return to Earth, its fuselage was designed totally without aerodynamic considerations, and was of an extremely lightweight construction. It consisted of separate descent and ascent stages, each with its own engine. The descent stage contained storage for the descent propellant, surface stay consumables, and surface exploration equipment. The ascent stage contained the crew cabin, ascent propellant, and a reaction control system. The initial LM model weighed approximately 15,100 kg, and allowed surface stays up to around 34 hours. An Extended Lunar Module weighed over 16,400 kg, and allowed surface stays of over 3 days.Apollo Lunar Module

Before the Apollo program began, Wernher von Braun and his team of rocket engineers had started work on plans for very large launch vehicles, the Saturn series, and the even larger Nova series. In the midst of these plans, von Braun was transferred from the Army to NASA, and made Director of the Marshall Space Flight Center. The initial direct ascent plan to send the three-man Apollo Command/Service Module directly to the lunar surface, on top of a large descent rocket stage, would require a Nova-class launcher, with a lunar payload capability of over 82,000 kg.However, the June 11, 1962, decision to use lunar orbit rendezvous enabled the Saturn V to replace the Nova, and the MSFC proceeded to develop the Saturn rocket family for Apollo.4 rockets were developed: Little Joe II, Saturn I, Saturn IB and the largest rocket ever builded Saturn V.II.2.1 Apollo 1 Disaster Apollo 1 was the first manned mission of the U.S. Apollo manned lunar landing program. Was to be the first manned test flight of the Apollo Command/Service Module (CSM) to Earth orbit, launched on a Saturn IB rocket. Apollo 1 was to test launch operations, ground tracking and control facilities and the performance of the Apollo-Saturn launch assembly and would have lasted up to two weeks, depending on how the spacecraft performed. NASA announced on March 21, 1966, that Grissom, White and Chaffee had been selected to fly the first manned mission. James McDivitt, David Scott and Russell Schweickart were named as the backup crew, and Walter Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walter Cunningham were named as the prime crew for a second Block I CSM flight. The launch simulation on January 27, 1967, was a "plugs-out" test to determine whether the spacecraft would operate nominally on (simulated) internal power while detached from all cables and umbilicals. Passing this test was essential to making the February 21 launch date. The crew members were using the time to run through their checklist again, when a voltage transient was recorded. Ten seconds later a fire engulfed the Command Module with White, Grissom and Chaffee inside. It took five minutes to open all three hatch layers, and they could not drop the inner hatch to the cabin floor as intended, so they pushed it out of the way to one side. The initial phase of the fire lasted only about 15 seconds before the Command Module's hull ruptured. As the cabin depressurized, the convective rush of air caused the flames to spread rapidly, beginning the second phase. The third phase began when most of the atmosphere was consumed. At this point, the fire largely stopped, but massive amounts of smoke, dust, carbon monoxide, and fumes now filled the cabin. Although the cabin lights remained lit, the ground crew was at first unable to find the astronauts through the dense smoke. As the smoke cleared they found the bodies but were not able to remove them. The fire had partly melted Grissom's and White's nylon space suits and the hoses connecting them to the life support system. Grissom had removed his restraints and was lying on the floor of the spacecraft. White's restraints were burned through, and he was found lying sideways just below the hatch. It was determined that he had tried to open the hatch per the emergency procedure, but was not able to do so against the internal pressure. Chaffee was found strapped into his right-hand seat, as procedure called for him to maintain communication until White opened the hatch. Because of the large strands of melted nylon fusing the astronauts to the cabin interior, removing the bodies took nearly 90 minutes. Grissom, White, and Chaffee

The Apollo 1 accident review board determined that a wire over the piping from the urine collection system had arced. The fire started below the crews feet, so from their supine positions on their couches they wouldnt have seen it in time to react. Everything in the cabin had been soaking in pure oxygen for hours, and flammable material near the wire caught fire immediately..The crews official cause of death was asphyxiation from smoke inhalation. Once their oxygen hoses were severed they began breathing in toxic gases. All three astronauts died in less than a minute.II.2.2 Apollo 11 Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first humans on the Moon, Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC.In addition to throngs of people crowding highways and beaches near the launch site, millions watched the

event on television, with NASA Chief of Public Information Jack King providing commentary. President Richard M. Nixon viewed the proceedings from the Oval Office of the White House. A Saturn V launched Apollo 11 from Launch Pad 39A, part of the Launch Complex 39 site at the Kennedy Space Center on July 16, 1969 at 13:32:00 UTC (9:32:00 a.m. EDT local time). It entered orbit twelve minutes later.After one and a half orbits, the S-IVB third-stage engine pushed the spacecraft onto its trajectory toward the Moon with the Trans-Lunar Injection burn at 16:22:13 UTC. About 30 minutes later the command/service module pair separated from this last remaining Saturn V stage and docked with the Lunar Module still nestled in the Lunar Module Adaptor. After the Lunar Module was extracted, the combined spacecraft headed for the Moon, while the third stage booster flew on a trajectory past the Moon and into heliocentric orbit. On July 19 at 17:21:50 UTC, Apollo 11 passed behind the Moon and fired its service propulsion engine to enter lunar orbit. In the thirty orbits that followed, the crew saw passing views of their landing site in the southern Sea of Tranquility (Mare Tranquillitatis) about 19 km southwest of the crater Sabine D . The landing site was selected in part because it had been characterized as relatively flat and smooth by the automated Ranger 8 and Surveyor 5 landers along with the Lunar Orbiter mapping spacecraft and unlikely to present major landing or extra-vehicular activity (EVA) challenges.Apollo 11 Landing Site

On July 20, 1969, the Lunar Module Eagle separated from the Command Module Columbia. Collins, alone aboard Columbia, inspected Eagle as it pirouetted before him to ensure the craft was not damaged.As the descent began, Armstrong and Aldrin found that they were passing landmarks on the surface four seconds early and reported that they were "long"; they would land miles west of their target point.Five minutes into the descent burn, and 6,000 1,800 m above the surface of the Moon, the LM navigation and guidance computer distracted the crew with the first of several program alarms. Inside Mission Control Center in Houston, Texas, computer engineer Jack Garman told guidance officer Steve Bales it was safe to continue the descent, and this was relayed to the crew. The program alarms indicated "executive overflows", meaning the guidance computer could not complete all of its tasks in real time and had to postpone some of them. When Armstrong again looked outside, he saw that the computer's landing target was in a boulder-strewn area just north and east of a 300-meter diameter crater (later determined to be "West crater," named for its location in the western part of the originally planned landing ellipse). Armstrong took semi-automatic control and, with Aldrin calling out altitude and velocity data, landed at 20:17:40 UTC on July 20 with about 25 seconds of fuel left. Armstrong acknowledged Aldrin's completion of the post landing checklist with "Engine arm is off," before responding to Houston Command Center with the words, "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." Armstrong's unrehearsed change of call sign from "Eagle" to "Tranquility Base" emphasized to listeners that landing was complete and successful. Houston mispronounced his reply as he expressed the relief at Mission Control: "Roger, Twan-- Tranquility, we copy you on the ground. You got a bunch of guys about to turn blue. We're breathing again. Thanks a lot. The astronauts planned placement of the Early Apollo Scientific Experiment Package and the U.S. flag by studying their landing site through Eagle's twin triangular windows, which gave them a 60 field of view. Preparation required longer than the two hours scheduled. At 02:39 UTC on Monday July 21, 1969, Armstrong opened the hatch, and at 02:51 UTC began his descent to the lunar surface. The Remote Control Unit controls on his chest kept him from seeing his feet. Climbing down the nine-rung ladder, Armstrong pulled a D-ring to deploy the Modular Equipment Stowage Assembly folded against Eagle's side and activate the TV camera, and at 02:56:15 UTC he set his left foot on the surface.The first landing used slow-scan television incompatible with commercial TV, so it was displayed on a special monitor and a conventional TV camera viewed this monitor, significantly reducing the quality of the picture.The signal was received at Goldstone in the United States but with better fidelity by Honeysuckle Creek Tracking Station in Australia. Minutes later the feed was switched to the more sensitive Parkes radio telescope in Australia.Despite some technical and weather difficulties, ghostly black and white images of the first lunar EVA were received and broadcast to at least 600 million people on Earth. After describing the surface dust as "very fine-grained" and "almost like a powder," Armstrong stepped off Eagle's footpad and uttered his famous line, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind, six and a half hours after landing. Aldrin joined him, describing the view as "Magnificent desolation."Apollo 11 First Step

About seven minutes after stepping onto the Moon's surface, Armstrong collected a contingency soil sample using a sample bag on a stick. He then folded the bag and tucked it into a pocket on his right thigh. This was to guarantee there would be some lunar soil brought back in case an emergency required the astronauts to abandon the EVA and return to the LM. The astronauts planted a specially designed U.S. flag on the lunar surface, in clear view of the TV camera. Some time later, President Richard Nixon spoke to them through a telephone-radio transmission which Nixon called "the most historic phone call ever made from the White House.Armstrong spent about two and a half hours outside the spacecraft, Aldrin slightly less, and together they collected 21.5 kg of lunar material for return to Earth. A third member of the mission, Michael Collins, piloted the command spacecraft alone in lunar orbit until Armstrong and Aldrin. After lifting off in the upper part of the Lunar Module and rejoining Collins in the Command Module, they returned to Earth and landed in the Pacific Ocean on July 24.Buzz Aldrin

Buzz Aldrin

CHAPTER IIIA NEW ERAIII.1 Manned DreamsIII.1.1 Space Shuttle NASA's Space Shuttle Program, officially called the Space Transportation System (STS), was the United States government's manned launch vehicle program from 1981 to 2011, with the program officially beginning in 1972. The winged Space Shuttle orbiter was launched vertically, usually carrying four to seven astronauts (although two and eight have been carried) and up to 22,700 kg of payload into low Earth orbit. When its mission was complete, the Shuttle could independently move itself out of orbit using its Orbital Maneuvering System and re-enter the Earth's atmosphere. During descent and landing the orbiter acted as a re-entry vehicle and a glider, using its RCS system and flight control surfaces to maintain altitude until it made an unpowered landing at either Kennedy Space Center or Edwards Air Force Base. Six orbiters were built:Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, Endeavour and a test-only shuttle Enterprise.A Space Shuttle has 3 main parts:Orbiter Vehicle, Solid Rocket Boosters and External Tank. Each vehicle was designed with a projected lifespan of 100 launches, or 10 years' operational life. All Space Shuttle missions were launched from the Kennedy Space Center (KSC).The weather criteria used for launch included, but were not limited to: precipitation, temperatures, cloud cover, lightning forecast, wind, and humidity.The Shuttle was not launched under conditions where it could have been struck by lightning. The first fully functional orbiter was Columbia (designated OV-102), built in Palmdale, California. It was delivered to Kennedy Space Center (KSC) on March 25, 1979, and was first launched on April 12, 1981the 20th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's space flightwith a crew of two. Challenger (OV-099) was delivered to KSC in July 1982, Discovery (OV-103) in November 1983, Atlantis (OV-104) in April 1985 and Endeavour in May 1991. Challenger was originally built and used as a Structural Test Article (STA-099), but was converted to a complete orbiter when this was found to be less expensive than converting Enterprise from its Approach and Landing Test configuration into a spaceworthy vehicle.Atlantis Taking Off

On April 24, 1990, Discovery carried the Hubble Space Telescope into space during STS-31. The longest Shuttle mission was STS-80 lasting 17 days, 15 hours. The final flight of the Space Shuttle program was STS-135 on July 8, 2011. In the course of 135 missions flown, two orbiters were destroyed, with loss of crew totalling 14 astronauts:- Challenger lost 73 seconds after liftoff, STS-51-L, January 28, 1986- Columbia lost approximately 16 minutes before its expected landing, STS-107, February 1, 2003 The Space Shuttle program was extended several times beyond its originally envisioned 15-year life span because of the delays in building the United States space station in low Earth orbit a project which eventually evolved into the International Space Station. . It was formally scheduled for mandatory retirement in 2010 in accord with the directives President George W. Bush issued on January 14, 2004 in his Vision for Space Exploration. A $2.5 billion spending provision allowing NASA to fly the Space Shuttle beyond its then-scheduled retirement in 2010 passed the Congress in April 2009, although neither NASA nor the White House requested the one-year extension. Out of the five fully functional shuttle orbiters built, three remain. Enterprise, which was used for atmospheric test flights but not for orbital flight, had many parts taken out for use on the other orbiters. It was later visually restored and was on display at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center until April 19, 2012. Enterprise was moved to New York City in April 2012 to be displayed at the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum, whose Space Shuttle Pavilion opened on July 19, 2012. Discovery replaced Enterprise at the National Air and Space Museum's Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. Atlantis formed part of the Space Shuttle Exhibit at the Kennedy Space Center visitor complex and has been on display there since June 29, 2013 following its refurbishment. On October 14, 2012, Endeavour completed an unprecedented 19 km drive on city streets from Los Angeles International Airport to the California Science Center, where it has been on display in a temporary hangar since late 2012. The transport from the airport took two days and required major street closures, the removal of over 400 city trees, and extensive work to raise power lines, level the street, and temporarily remove street signs, lamp posts, and other obstacles. Hundreds of volunteers, and fire and police personnel, helped with the transport. Large crowds of spectators waited on the streets to see the shuttle as it passed through the city. Endeavour will be displayed permanently beginning in 2017 at the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center where it will be mounted in the vertical position complete with solid rocket boosters and an external tank.Endeavour Docked with ISS

The Space Shuttle program occupied over 654 facilities, used over 1.2 million line items of equipment, and employed over 5,000 people. The total value of equipment was over $12 billion. Shuttle-related facilities represented over a quarter of NASA's inventory. There were over 1,200 active suppliers to the program throughout the United States. NASA's transition plan had the program operating through 2010 with a transition and retirement phase lasting through 2015. During this time, the Ares I and Orion as well as the Altair Lunar Lander were to be under development, although these programs have since been canceled. Retirement of the Shuttle - the most complex vehicle ever built - ended the era in which all of America's varied space activities were performed by one craft -or even one organization. Functions performed by the Shuttle for 30 years will be done by not one but many different spacecraft currently flying or in advanced development. Secret military missions are being flown by the US Air Force's "highly successful" unmanned mini-space plane, the X-37B. By 2012, cargo supply to the International Space Station began to be flown by privately owned commercial craft under NASA's Commercial Resupply Services by SpaceX's successfully tested and partially reusable Dragon spacecraft, followed by Orbital Sciences' Cygnus spacecraft in late 2013. Crew service to the ISS will be flown exclusively by the Russian Soyuz while NASA works on the Commercial Crew Development program. For missions beyond low Earth orbit, NASA is building the Space Launch System and the Orion spacecraft.III.1.2 International Space Station International Space Station (ISS) is a space station, or a habitable artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. It is a modular structure whose first component was launched in 1998.Now the largest artificial body in orbit, it can often be seen at the appropriate time with the naked eye from Earth.The ISS consists of pressurised modules, external trusses, solar arrays and other components. ISS components have been launched by American Space Shuttles as well as Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets.In 1984 the ESA was invited to participate in Space Station Freedom.In 1993, after the USSR ended, the United States and Russia merged Mir-2 and Freedom together. The ISS serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which crew members conduct experiments in biology, human biology, physics, astronomy, meteorology and other fields. The station is suited for the testing of spacecraft systems and equipment required for missions to the Moon and Mars. Since the arrival of Expedition 1 on 2 November 2000, the station has been continuously occupied for 13 years and 92 days, the longest continuous human presence in space. (In 2010, the station surpassed the previous record of almost 10 years (or 3,634 days) held by Mir.) The station is serviced by a variety of visiting spacecraft: Soyuz, Progress, the Automated Transfer Vehicle, the H-II Transfer Vehicle, Dragon, and Cygnus. It has been visited by astronauts and cosmonauts from 15 different nations.International Space Station

The ISS programme is a joint project among five participating space agencies: NASA, Roskosmos, JAXA, ESA, and CSA.The ownership and use of the space station is established by intergovernmental treaties and agreements.The station is divided into two sections, the Russian Orbital Segment (ROS) and the United States Orbital Segment (USOS), which is shared by many nations, The ISS maintains an orbit with an altitude of between 330 km and 435 km by means of reboost manoeuvres using the engines of the Zvezda module or visiting spacecraft. It completes 15 orbits per day.The ISS is funded until 2024, and may operate until 2028. The Russian Federal Space Agency, Roskosmos has proposed using the ISS to commission modules for a new space station, called OPSEK, before the remainder of the ISS is deorbited. The ISS consists of 15 pressurized modules: seven US modules (Destiny, Unity, Quest, Tranquility, Harmony, Cupola, and Leonardo), five Russian modules (Zarya, Zvezda, Pirs, Poisk and Rassvet), two Japanese modules (the JEM-ELM-PS and JEM-PM) and one European module (Columbus). One more Russian pressurized module (Nauka) is scheduled to be added to the station.Although not permanently docked with the ISS, Multi-Purpose Logistics Modules (MPLMs) form part of the ISS during some Shuttle missions. An MPLM is attached to Harmony (initially to Unity) and is used for resupply and logistics flights.Spacecraft attached to the ISS also extend the pressurized volume. At least one Soyuz spacecraft is always docked as a 'lifeboat' and is replaced every six months by a new Soyuz as part of crew rotation.Inside ISS Columbus Module

Each permanent crew is given an expedition number. Expeditions run up to six months, from launch until undocking, an 'increment' covers the same time period, but includes cargo ships and all activities. Expeditions 1 to 6 consisted of 3 person crews, Expeditions 7 to 12 were reduced to the safe minimum of two following the destruction of the NASA Shuttle Columbia. From Expedition 13 the crew gradually increased to 6 around 2010. With the arrival of the American Commercial Crew vehicles in the middle of the 2010s, expedition size may be increased to seven crew members, the number ISS is designed for. Sergei Krikalev, member of Expedition 1 and Commander of Expedition 11 has spent more time in space than anyone else, a total of 803 days and 9 hours and 39 minutes. His awards include the Order of Lenin, Hero of the Soviet Union, Hero of the Russian Federation, and 4 NASA medals. On 16 August 2005 at 1:44 am EDT he passed the record of 748 days held by Sergei Avdeyev, who had 'time travelled' 1/50th of a second into the future on board MIR.He participated in psychosocial experiment SFINCSS-99 (Simulation of Flight of International Crew on Space Station), which examined inter-cultural and other stress factors affecting integration of crew in preparation for the ISS spaceflights. Commander Michael Fincke has spent a total of 382 days in space more than any other American astronaut. Travellers who pay for their own passage into space are termed spaceflight participants by Roskosmos and NASA, and are sometimes informally referred to as space tourists, a term they generally dislike.All seven were transported to the ISS on Russian Soyuz spacecraft. When professional crews change over in numbers not divisible by the three seats in a Soyuz, and a short-stay crewmember is not sent, the spare seat is sold by MirCorp through Space Adventures. When the space shuttle retired in 2011, and the station's crew size was reduced to 6,

space tourism was halted, as the partners relied on Russian transport seats for access to the station. Soyuz flight schedules increase after 2013, allowing 5 Soyuz flights (15 seats) with only two expeditions (12 seats) required.The remaining seats are sold for around US$40 million to members of the public who can pass a medical. ESA and NASA criticised private spaceflight at the beginning of the ISS, and NASA initially resisted training Dennis Tito, the first man to pay for his own passage to the ISS.Toyohiro Akiyama was flown to Mir for a week, he was classed as a business traveller, as his employer, Tokyo Broadcasting System, paid for his ticket, and he gave a daily TV broadcast from orbit. All Russian manned spacecraft, modules, and progress craft are able to rendezvous and dock to the space station without human intervention. Using Kurs radar they detect and intercept the ISS from over 200 kilometres away. The European ATV uses star sensors and GPS to determine its intercept course. When it catches up it then uses laser equipment to optically recognise Zvezda, with Russian Kurs redundancy. Crew supervise these craft, but do not intervene except to send abort commands in emergencies. The Japanese H-II Transfer Vehicle parks itself in progressively closer orbits to the station, and then awaits 'approach' commands from the crew, until it is close enough for the crew to grapple it with a robotic arm and berth it to the USOS. The American Space Shuttle was manually docked, and on missions with a cargo container, the container would be berthed to the Station with the use of manual robotic arms. Berthed craft can transfer International Standard Payload Racks. Japanese spacecraft berth for one to two months. Russian and European Supply craft can remain at the ISS for six months, allowing great flexibility in crew time for loading and unloading of supplies and trash. NASA Shuttles could remain docked for 1112 day.Cupola Module

A typical day for the crew begins with a wake-up at 06:00, followed by post-sleep activities and a morning inspection of the station. The crew then eats breakfast and takes part in a daily planning conference with Mission Control before starting work at around 08:10. he first scheduled exercise of the day follows, after which the crew continues work until 13:05. Following a one-hour lunch break,the afternoon consists of more exercise and work before the crew carries out its pre-sleep activities beginning at 19:30, including dinner and a crew conference. The scheduled sleep period begins at 21:30. In general, the crew works ten hours

per day on a weekday, and five hours on Saturdays, with the rest of the time their own for relaxation or work catch-up. Most of the food on board is vacuum sealed in plastic bags. Cans are too heavy and expensive to transport, so there are not as many. The preserved food is generally not held in high regard by the crew, and when combined with the reduced sense of taste in a microgravity environment, a great deal of effort is made to make the food more palatable. More spices are used than in regular cooking, and the crew looks forward to the arrival of any ships from Earth, as they bring fresh fruit and vegetables with them. Drinks are provided in dehydrated powder form and are mixed with water before consumption. The ISS does not feature a shower; instead, crewmembers wash using a water jet and wet wipes, with soap dispensed from a toothpaste tube-like container. Crews are also provided with rinseless shampoo and edible toothpaste to save water.Chris Hadfield

The ISS is arguably the most expensive single item ever constructed.As of 2010 the cost is estimated to be 150 billion dollars. It includes NASA's budget of 58.7 billion dollars for the station from 1985 to 2015 ,Russia's 12 billion dollars ISS budget, Europe's 5 billion dollars, Japan's 5 billion dollars, and Canada's 2 billion dollars plus the cost of 36 shuttle flights to build the stationestimated at 1.4 billion dollars each. Assuming 20,000 person-days of use from 2000 to 2015 by two to six-person crews, each person-day would cost $7.5 million, less than half the inflation adjusted 19.6 million dollars per person-day of Skylab.III.2 Solar System and BeyondIII.2.1 The Conquest of the Solar System More than 1,000 unmanned missions have been designed to explore the Earth and the Solar System. Besides exploration, communication satellites have also been launched by NASA.The missions have been launched directly from Earth or from orbiting space shuttles, which could either deploy the satellite itself, or with a rocket stage to take it farther. The inner Solar System has been made the goal of at least four unmanned programs. The first was Mariner in the 1960s and 70s, which made multiple visits to Venus and Mars and one to Mercury. Probes launched under the Mariner program were also the first to make a planetary flyby (Mariner 2), to take the first pictures from another planet (Mariner 4), the first planetary orbiter (Mariner 9), and the first to make a gravity assist maneuver (Mariner 10). This is a technique where the satellite takes advantage of the gravity and velocity of planets to

reach its destination. The first successful landing on Mars was made by Viking 1 in 1976. Twenty years later a rover was landed on Mars by Mars Pathfinder. Outside Mars, Jupiter was first visited by Pioneer 10 in 1973. More than 20 years later Galileo sent a probe into the planet's atmosphere, and became the first spacecraft to orbit the planet.Pioneer 11 became the first spacecraft to visit Saturn in 1979, with Voyager 2 making the first (and so far only) visits to Uranus and Neptune in 1986 and 1989, respectively..For a time Pioneer it was the most distant spacecraft, but it has since been surpassed by both Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. On September 12, 2013, NASA officially confirmed that Voyager 1 had reached the interstellar medium, making it the first human-made object to do so. Voyager 1 will reach the Oort cloud in about 300 years and take about 30,000 years to pass through it.Though it is not heading towards any particular star, in about 40,000 years, it will pass within 1.6 light years of the star Gliese 445, which is at present in the constellation Camelopardalis.Great Red Spot From Voyager 1Great Red Spot from Voyager 1

Pioneers 10 and 11 and both Voyager probes carry messages from the Earth to extraterrestrial life.A problem with deep space travel is communication. For instance, it takes about 3 hours at present for a radio signal to reach the New Horizons spacecraft at a point more than halfway to Pluto.Contact with Pioneer 10 was lost in 2003. Both Voyager probes continue to operate as they explore the outer boundary between the Solar System and interstellar space. The Cassini orbiter began studying Saturn and its moons after passing Venus and Jupiter and deploying the Huygens landing probe to Titan. It is primarily investigating Saturn's rings, its magnetosphere, and the geologic composition of its satellites; the mission may potentially contin ue until 2017. 2001 Mars Odyssey, a tribute to the classic novel and film, is one of three currently active human-made Mars satellites. It is continuing its extended mission to map the surface of Mars and also acts as a relay for the Curiosity and Opportunity rovers. Mars Express is Mars orbiter designed to study the planet's atmosphere and geology, search for sub-surface water, and deploy the Beagle lander. Mission extended until at least 31 December 2014. Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is the second NASA satellite orbiting Mars. It is specifically designed to analyze the landforms, stratigraphy, minerals, and ice of the red planet. MESSENGER is studying Mercury. It is only the second probe to do so and is the first to orbit the planet. Technologically, it is far superior to its 1975 predecessor, Mariner 10. Having previously passed Earth once, Venus twice and Mercury three times, it entered orbit in March 2011. Venus Express, modeled after the Mars Express, is collecting data on the Venusian atmosphere and cloud conditions. Mission extended until at least 31 December 2014. Dawn successfully entered asteroid Vesta's orbit in July 2011. There it studied Vesta until September 2012, when it departed for dwarf planet Ceres with expected arrival in 2015. Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is engaged in lunar mapping intended to identify safe landing sites, locate potential resources on the Moon, characterize the radiation environment, and demonstrate new technology. LADEE is studying dust in the Moon's vicinity. ARTEMIS P1/P2 are studying the effect of the solar wind on the Moon. Originally launched as Earth satellites, they were later repurposed and moved to lunar orbit. There are also 2 active rovers on Mars: Opportunity Rover landed on Meridiani Planum. Expected to last 90 Martian days (sols), it continues to function effectively after 3563 sols. Its twin, Spirit Rover, explored an area on the other side of the planet, but became stuck in soft soil May 1, 2009, and communication was lost March 22, 2010 (sol 2210). Curiosity rover launched in 2011 is searching for evidence of organic material on Mars, monitoring methane levels in the atmosphere, and engaging in exploration of the landing site at Gale Crater.Martian Sunset by Curiosity

Also there are few missons en-route: Rosetta, launched after several delays and mission changes, is currently on an intercept course with the comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko. It will deploy a lander for further investigation after reaching it. New Horizons will be the first spacecraft to study Pluto, and ultimately the Kuiper Belt. It is the fastest artificially-accelerated object and will be the fifth probe to leave the solar system. Juno is en route to Jupiter and upon arrival will enter a polar orbit around the gas giant. MAVEN is a space probe designed to study the Martian atmosphere while orbiting Mars. Mission goals include determining how the Martian atmosphere and water, presumed to have once been substantial, were lost over time, due to arrive on September 2014. III.2 Alien Universe Beside manned or unmanned spaceflights, NASA invested in deep-sky exploration too.With current technologies it will take thousand of years to reach the closest star.So NASA invested in space observatories. A large number of observatories have been launched into orbit, and most of them have greatly enhanced our knowledge of the extraterrestrial universe.Observatories are grouped by major frequency ranges: gamma ray, x-ray, ultraviolet, visible, infrared, microwave and radio. Gamma ray telescopes collect and measure individual, high energy gamma rays from astrophysical sources. These are absorbed by the atmosphere, requiring that observations are done by high-altitude balloons or space missions. Gamma rays can be generated by supernovae, neutron stars, pulsars and black holes.Exemple:Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer or Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. X-ray telescopes measure high-energy photons called X-rays. These can not travel a long distance through the atmosphere, meaning that they can only be observed high in the atmosphere or in space. Several types of astrophysical objects emit X-rays, from galaxy clusters, through black holes in active galactic nuclei to galactic objects such as supernova remnants, stars, and binary stars containing a white dwarf (cataclysmic variable stars), neutron star or black hole (X-ray binaries).Exemple:Chandra X-ray Observatory or Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). Ultraviolet telescopes make observations at ultraviolet wavelengths.Light at these wavelengths is absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, so observations at these wavelengths must be performed from the upper atmosphere or from space.Objects emitting ultraviolet radiation include the Sun, other stars and galaxies.Exemple:Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) or Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS). The oldest form of astronomy, optical or visible-light astronomy.Positioning an optical telescope in space means that the telescope does not see any atmospheric effects, providing higher resolution images. Optical telescopes are used to look at stars, galaxies,

planetary nebulae and protoplanetary disks, amongst many other things.Exemple: Hubble Space Telescope or Kepler Telescope. Infrared light is of lower energy than visible light, hence is emitted by cooler objects. As such, the following can be viewed in the infrared: cool stars (including brown dwarves), nebulae, and redshifted galaxies.Exemple:Spitzer Space Telescope At microwave frequencies, photons are plentiful, but they have very low energy so lots of them need to be collected. At these frequencies, the Cosmic Microwave Background can be measured.Exemple:WMAPEagle Nebula by Hubble

WMAP's measurements played the key role in establishing the current Standard Model of Cosmology: the age of the universe is 13.772 billion years, The content of the universe presently consists of 4.628 % ordinary matter; 24.027% dark matter that neither emits nor absorbs light; and 71.35% of dark energy in the form of a cosmological constant that accelerates the expansion of the universe. Kepler is a space observatory launched by NASA to discover Earth-like planets orbiting other stars.The spacecraft, named after the Renaissance astronomer Johannes Kepler,was launched on March 7, 2009. Designed to survey a portion of our region of the Milky Way to discover dozens of Earth-size extrasolar planets in or near the habitable zone and estimate how many of the billions of stars in our galaxy have such planets,Kepler's sole instrument is a photometer that continually monitors the brightness of over 145,000 main sequence stars in a fixed field of view.This data is transmitted to Earth, then analyzed to detect periodic dimming caused by extrasolar planets that cross in front of their host star. Kepler is part of NASA's Discovery Program of relatively low-cost, focused primary science missions. The telescope's construction and initial operation were managed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, with Ball Aerospace responsible for developing the Kepler flight system. The Ames Research Center is responsible for the ground system development, mission operations since December 2009, and science data analysis. The initial planned lifetime was 3.5 years, but greater than expected noise in the data, from both the stars and the spacecraft, meant additional time was needed to fulfill all mission goals. Initially, in 2012, the mission was expected to last until 2016, but this would only be possible if all remaining reaction wheels used for pointing the spacecraft remained reliable.On May 11, 2013, a second of four reaction wheels failed, disabling the collection of science data and threatening the continuation of the mission. As of February 2014, the Kepler spacecraft and its follow-up observations has detected 961 confirmed planets, including hot Jupiters, super-Earths, circumbinary planets, and planets located in the circumstellar habitable zones of their host stars. In addition, Kepler has detected over 3,538 unconfirmed planet candidates and 2,165 eclipsing binary stars.In November 2013, astronomers reported, based on Kepler space mission data, that there could be as many as 40 billion Earth-sized planets orbiting in the habitable zones of sun-like stars and red dwarf stars within the Milky Way Galaxy.11 billion of these estimated planets may be orbiting sun-like stars.The nearest such planet may be 12 light-years away, according to the scientists.Kepler 62-f

On August 15, 2013, NASA announced that they have given up trying to fix the two failed reaction wheels. This means the current mission needs to be modified, but it does not necessarily mean the end of planet-hunting. NASA has asked the community to propose alternative mission plans "potentially including an exoplanet search, using the remaining two good reaction wheels and thrusters".On November 18, 2013, the K2 (also named "Second Light") plan proposal, which may include utilizing the disabled Kepler in a way that could detect habitable planets around smaller, dimmer red dwarf stars, was reported and, later, presented in more detail. Chapter IVFuture Dreams NASA is conducting an unprecedented array of missions that will seek new knowledge and understanding of Earth, the solar system and the universe. NASA has observatories in Earth orbit and deep space, spacecraft visiting the moon and other planetary bodies, and robotic landers, rovers, and sample return missions. NASA's science vision encompasses questions as practical as hurricane formation, as enticing as the prospect of lunar resources, and as profound as the origin of the universe. NASA would send astronauts to a nearby asteroid, perhaps as early as 2025. Landing on an object roughly the size of a football stadium (or even smaller) would have multiple benefits. Obviously, there is just the experience of conducting such a logistically difficult space flight. But there are also considerable scientific reasons for such a mission.This would give NASA the opportunity to develop and test deflection systems that could redirect a potentially hazardous asteroid threatening Earth. Also, it would provide new information about the origin of the solar system. Then, by the 2030s, NASA hopes to be able to send astronauts to orbit Mars, and ultimately land on the Red Planet. The United States has a number of robotic missions currently exploring Mars, with a sample-return planned for the future. The US does not currently have a launcher capable of sending humans to Mars, however, the Space Launch System could be that vehicle. The Orion spacecraft, currently under development by NASA, could ferry astronauts from the surface of Earth to join a Mars-bound expedition in Earth orbit and then back to Earth's surface once the expedition has returned from Mars. NASA has used the Haughton impact crater on Devon Island as a proving ground due to the crater's similarity with Martian geology.A trip to Mars will take months or even a year but as tehnology develops trip duration will shrink. NASA is also preparing new space observatories such as James Webb Space Telescope due to launch in 2018 or Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite(TESS) for a 2017 launch.Also, in 2020 NASA will send another rover to Mars, intended to investigate an astrobiologically relevant ancient environment on Mars, investigate its surface geological processes and history, including the assessment of its past habitability and potential for preservation of biosignatures within accessible geological materials.Solar Sail Concept

Space colonization, interstellar manned spaceflight, planet terraforming and alien life-form finding are reachable goals in the next 100 years.Scientist are developing new ways of travelling faster, because distances are great.Exotic technologies like faster than light speed, wormholes, nuclear pulse propulsion spacecraft or solar sail ships are in first phase or just at theoretical level.Who knows, but maybe scenes from Star Trek or other SF films will become reality in the not too far future.

Conclusions

Space exploration is the key of human future. The exploration of space is an engine for creation. It sparks high-tech and high-paying jobs. It captures the pulse of our planet and its complicated climate. It spurs technological innovation that enhances daily life, from advances in aviation to medical devices that help save lives. It is also a key engine for igniting interest in youth to study science, technology and math. Dollars spent on space exploration dont get blasted into Earth orbit. Everyone on Earth is a beneficiary of space exploration robotic and human with a global return on investment that is truly immeasurable.Domanis like medicine, IT, education are well impoved be exploration. We are part of this universe; we are in this universe, but perhaps more important than both of those facts, is that the universe is in us. Dreams about the future are always filled with gadgets, flying car, teleportation and the exploration of space will fulfill our dreams. Space exploration will answer to our greatest questions:how did life appeared, how the universe appeared, are we alone in the universe?. The very nature of science is discoveries, and the best of those discoveries are the ones you don't expect. And to finish I will quote Dr. Neill deGrasse Tyson: Asteroids have us in our sight. Dinosaurs are extinct today because they lacked opposable thumbs and the brainpower to build a space program.We have the power to do something about it. I don't want to be the embarrassment of the galaxy, to have had the power to deflect an asteroid, and then not, and end up going extinct.

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Bibliography

www.nasa.gov www.wikipedia.org www.space.com www.gettyimages.com Tyson, Neil deGrasse (2012).Space Chronicles: Facing the Ultimate Frontier Chaikin, Andrew(1994). A Man on the Moon Sagan, Carl(1980). Cosmos

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