50 Years of Space Exploration. And What Next?

By Antonio Marques • Oct 4th, 2007 • Category: Astronomy, Opinion, Space

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the beginning of Space Exploration. On the October 4th, 1957, the Soviet Union, using a modified R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile, launched into space the first artificial object to orbit Earth: Sputnik.

The small satellite, twice the size of a football and weighting 83Kg, orbited our planet for 22 days and gave precious data (at the time) about the ionosphere.

But it was much more than just a scientific exploration tool. The main purpose of Sputnik was political: show the superiority of the Soviet Union on a massive scale. Overall, science was to gain. Following the launch of Sputnik, enormous amounts of funding were made available to maths and physics and led to the creating of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on October 1st, 1958. Isn’t competition good after all for development?

After Sputnik…

Bellow is a small list of the major space milestones achieved since the historical moment of 1957:

October 1957: Sputnik goes into orbit;
November 1957: Just one month after the successful launch of Sputnik, the Soviet Union makes another breakthrough launching Sputnik 2, which carried the first animal into space, the famous dog Laika;
January 1958: In an attempt not to be left behind, the United States launch Explorer 1, the first american satellite;
April 1961: Less than 4 years after Sputnik, the Soviets strike again, this time putting the first human, Yuri Gagarin, into orbit;
December 1962: Mariner 2, a US launch, becomes the first human device to reach another planet: Venus;
July 1969: “A small step for man, a giant leap for mankind”. Neil Alden Armstrong, mission commander of the Apollo 11, becomes the first human to step on the moon;
April 1981: NASA successfully launches Space Shuttle, the first reusable spacecraft;
April 1990: Hubble Telescope goes out;
November 1998: Russia launches the first module of the International Space Station (ISS);

And what next?

As you can see from the above list, while there was competition, space exploration was a hot subject. As soon as the Cold War was over, things slowed a lot. Again, competition is a great thing for development, even if sometimes for the wrong reasons.

Nowadays, it seems that wars are a much better way to spend money (I’m just wondering who is getting it).

Although space exploration is still going high (pun not intended) with some successful missions to the ISS and Mars, it is my opinion that things are not very defined. There is talk about repeating the Man on the Moon story circa 2020 (50 years since it was accomplished the first time) and even talk about trying the same for Mars. At the same time, the Hubble, the fantastic telescope that so much has done for space knowledge, was at great risks of being decommissioned due to financial issues.

Do we need another Cold War to make things happen?

If you are interested watch the Reuters video.

Share and Bookmark: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.