Wednesday, June 1, 2016

JOURNEY TO MARS

JOURNEY TO MARS - Interplanetary space travel has been the vision of science fiction prophets for over a century. Consider the iconic silent film, directed by Georges Méliès entitled Le Voyage dans la Lune (1902). It was based on From the Earth to the Moon written by Jules Verne. But, NASA’s first foray onto another planet, Apollo 11 in 1969, was 46 years ago. It’s been a long time since, and the world has transformed dramatically in the interim. What’s NASA planning now, you might ask? Well, they have plans for us, big plans. The space agency will send humans to an asteroid by 2025 and to Mars by 2030. The International Space Station, Mars rovers, robotic asteroid missions and transmission of cargo to Mars are all considered incremental steps. Using the Orion spacecraft in 2020, astronauts will capture an asteroid, place it in moon orbit and explore around it, eventually returning to Earth with samples. So, Mars is next, and beyond that … who knows? If you're a regular visitor to my blog you already know I’m fascinated by a simple question. What if? Impossible to answer.

















4 comments:

  1. Love those space pictures. I recently watched "The Martian" and was pleasantly surprised

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  2. Always one of my favorite subjects. Fun fact- Jules Verne accurately predicted the best launch point to reach the moon (he was 100 miles away from Cape Canaveral) and how long it would take to reach the moon (3 days). Not bad for a Victorian Age author.

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  3. Space is so cool. I loved watching the launches on TV.

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