Outer Space

Saturn, Courtesy NASA

Outer space is the ultimate frontier. We will never exhaust its possibilities. There will always be ‘terra incognita’ beyond the known lands. With billions of galaxies, each with millions or billions of stars and their associated planets, the potential for exploration will be there forever. 

With that said, there are a multitude of barriers to travel through outer space; (1) Distances are difficult to comprehend based on human history. Past improvements in human travel time: foot > horse, horse > train, train > plane, plane > rocket seem minuscule in comparison to the speed now required. A poor analogy would be rising from a world at the subatomic scale to our current world. (2) Extreme costs which could bankrupt all but the most powerful nations or associations of the same.  (3) Alien environment presenting great danger to future travelers or inhabitants. These barriers are not easily overcome.

 

A Future in Space?

American astronaut on the Moon, Courtesy NASA

Given such  inexhaustible dangers and barriers, is there sufficient incentive to sally forth into this great unknown? Will space exploration be the next great adventure of human civilization? Will support by governments and private enterprise for exploration of the unknown grow and expand in the years ahead? Will 2200 be part of a ‘Golden Age’ of space exploration? Examples from human history say, perhaps not. 

American history of the Twentieth Century indicates that support for space exploration could be fleeting. The great leap forward to the moon initiated by President John Kennedy in the 1960s was thwarted in the early 1970s by President Richard Nixon's cut off in political and financial support. Again, in the early decades of the 21st Century, economic downturns of worldwide proportions threatened to strangle space exploration in its infancy. 

On the other hand, as the second quarter of the 21st Century begins, the potential for new scientific and economic discovery in space and the enthusiasm of millions of space exploration supporters indicates the great exploration may be about to begin. Man may not be condemned forever to life on one planet. A great unknown exists out there and a wealth of science flowing from exploration of the cosmos sees endless. Outer space could also be seen as a path to great wealth and economic stimulation on this planet. Asteroid mining could be the kick starter of private exploration of space.

Forestalled Exploration in the Past

 

Around the year 1000 CE, Leif Eriksson and his Norsemen in a ship out of Greenland discovered the North American continent. Other than occasional forays to obtain lumber, interest in these western lands seemed to have faded away. But for the Icelandic sagas, memory of them in European history might have disappeared. Five hundred years would pass before Europeans again set foot in America.

In 1405 CE, Zheng He, admiral of China under emperor Zhu Di, set out in a treasure fleet of 62 great ships for India. Between 1405 and 1433, the Ming government sponsored seven such naval expeditions, reaching as far west as the Horn of Africa. The voyages were ended in 1433 for ‘being contrary to the rules stipulated in the Ancestral Injunctions’. 

Note the great difference in size between Zheng He's flagship (Baochuan)
and Christoper Columbus' Santa Maria

With powerful personages opposed to further exploration, China left the discovery and exploitation of earth’s frontiers to the Europeans. Christopher Columbus reached America in 1492. Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498. 

How different the world would have been if the Chinese had not lost the urge to reach forth into the unknown. How different our future will be if earth's people turn away from the stars.

Humans in Outer Space 

If the barriers of distance, cost and danger are to be overcome, three factors will be crucial to success in space:

Extensive & accurate knowledge about what lies beyond the planet earth - Acquiring knowledge about this universe is the principal activity of earth nations and space agencies today. Whether sending space probes within the Solar System or searching for the signs of planets orbiting other stars, such knowlege is crucial to deciding the future direction of voyages into the unknown. 

Finding a fast, cheaper and safe means to get to where we want to go - Improving the means of transportation and increasing human safety in space is crucial to the attainment of space travel as a commonplace occurrence. Project ICARUS, a Tau Zero Foundation (TZF) initiative in collaboration with The British Interplanetary Society (BIS), is looking at the leading edge of projected technology with the goal of achieving a realistically demanding interstellar mission. In 2010, Steven Hawking, in an article written for the Daily Mail, shared his thinking on time travel and achieving the outer limits of future space voyages. 

Creating new places on other bodies in the cosmos where humans and other terrestrial life can thrive - The third factor must await our success with the first two. Terraform is defined by Webster's Dictionary as to alter the environment of (a celestial body) in order to make capable of supporting terrestrial life forms. For human beings to live in space or on the various natural bodies orbiting the sun or other stars, terraforming to some degree will be necessary. The only other pathway is through altering the human body to enable us to thrive in environments alien to conditions on the surface of the Earth.