What are we doing in space?

How advanced is our Space Technology?

Throughout history, space exploration has been a big factor in shaping our society today. There was the space race of the 1900s and the Apollo moon landing in 1969 but those were small achievements considering how massive space is. With our galaxy having a forever growing amount of stars, landing on the moon is a small milestone in the whole picture. There are planets to explore and still the question of if there are other life out there. Those are all questions that we should consider finding the answers to. We are in the age of technology and our weakest aspect of it all is space technology.

We have put a man on the moon and brought him back, we also have drones and rovers on Mars. what we don't have are spaceships that will take us humans out to explore further into outer space. There is way more to the galaxy than just the moon. The moon is just a big piece of rock that glows at night while mars is hotter than a desert wasteland. None of them can sustain life and we had no technological breakthrough which would help us inhabit these two outer space locations. “Landing a man on the man and returning him safely to Earth within a decade” was a national goal set by president John F. Kennedy in 1961. On July 20,1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong took “one giant leap for mankind” as he stepped onto the moon.”(A Brief History of Space Exploration Aerospace). This shows that what was a giant leap for Mankind was the only leap taken because on this day the trip to the moon is still the only time humans have put foot on the surface of another star in the Solar System. It's been 50 plus years since the event took place and there hasn't been any successful attempts afterwards. Landing on the moon was a great accomplishment but with the technology we have today going beyond the moon should be our next goal.

A man landing on the moon was all because of the Space Race of the 1900s. During the 1900s the space race was America vs Soviet Union Russia competing to see who has more control in outer space. Based on the youtube channel Knowledgehub in the video The Space Race it stated that as a result of the Soviet Union Russia being the first to send a man to space, it made president Kennedy to set a 4 year plan which was to be the first to a man to the moon. President Kennedy's plan worked resusting in America winning the space. The space race would not really be over until the U.S and Soviet Union Russia decided to work together to send the Apollo Soyuz mission into orbit. “Apollo-Soyuz was the first international space mission, carried out jointly by the United States and the Soviet Union in July 1975. Millions of people around the world watched on television as a U.S. Apollo module docked with a Soviet Soyuz capsule...It is generally considered to mark the end of the Space Race.” (Samuels, Richard J. Encyclopedia of United States National Security (669). This tells us that the space race ended in 1975 when the U.S and the Soviet Union set aside their differences and decided to go on a mission together.

In current day activities we are seeing more and more planets being discovered. Different planets with different atmospheres are appearing everyday. At the time none of them contain life but we are just exploring our neighboring planets. Scientists are still on the lookout for any planet that contains life and any planet that is able to sustain human life. According to the YouTuber Smart Banana in the video 10 recently discovered Earth like planets the planet Ross 128 is eleven light years away from Earth and is thought to have a similar atmosphere to Earth. While there are many more other planets out there with similar atmospheres, the technology needed to get to these planets is not yet made. With our current tech too slow to be able to get these other planets, it makes it impossible for us to colonize these planets. With the knowledge of all these different planets they may be able to sustain life. The technology to travel to these planets is the only step missing. Without any other country giving America a challenge in space travels, the motivation to explore further into space remains in the movies. With there being no competition the desire to colonize other planets has become a thought that remains in the minds of different people. The space race was a great motivation that forced the people to work harder on creating technology that led to one of the if not the greatest human accomplishments.

Many people argue that we have enough problems on Earth to be focused on exploring other planets. They say that the economic system is already rough for us to be spending money on such things as space travel. To that others respond that space exploration may improve the economy due to the unknown materials that could be found in outer space. Outer Space contains different stars that could be made out of any materials. Those materials could one day be harvested once the people have the right technology. To get to the right technology the economy has to raise fundings to get to that level. “Space exploration, the investigation, by means of crewed and uncrewed spacecraft, of the reaches of the universe beyond Earth’s atmosphere and the use of the information so gained to increase knowledge of the cosmos and benefit humanity.” (John M. Logsdon Space Exploration) .This demonstrates that space exploration is a means of improving humanity's understanding of space and what it could offer us. With different discoveries giving us more and more information about what is beyond our atmosphere, these new found knowledge can be very beneficial to us. Any information about what is beyond our reach is helpful to helping us understand why we are here and if we're the only ones out here in the galaxy. It all starts with the ability to be able to raise funds to improve technology that deals with space explorations.

In this matter I think that the government should do more in order to get more technology to venture out into outer space. There are a lot of different things to discover out there and they might even be life changing. With the cosmos forever growing new materials that we have never seen before is likely to have been created. These materials can be very useful to human development as they may have their value in society. Also, the question of if there is life other there besizes on planet Earth could also be answered. The technology to be able to explore further into outer space may be costly but it is a risk that might pay off considering that we have no idea about what can be found in outer space.

Our understanding of space has been very limited considering how big outer space is. We had succeeded in getting a man on the moon and back but that was about it. Humanity has also succeeded in discovering other planets with an atmosphere similar to Earth but our technology prevents us from ever reaching these planets anything soon. Our space technology is not very advanced considering that we basically know close to nothing about outer space. There are some discoveries here and there but they very minor. Most of our space discoveries were due to the space race and since it ended years ago all other attempts to get a man to the surface of another star have been met with failure. More efforts should be made to colonize space as there is a large portion of the galaxy out there to explore. Many people say that we should be less focused on outer space and more focused on earth but evidence has proven gaining more information about what is out there can be very beneficial to humanity.

Work cited

Aerospace A Brief History of Space Exploration

Knowledgehub the video The Space Race

John M. Logsdon Space Exploration)

Smart Banana the video 10 recently discovered Earth like planets

Samuels, Richard J. Encyclopedia of United States National Security