Today the Space Age offically entered its fiftieth year, as today marks fifty years since Sputnik roared off the pad at Baikanor Cosmodrome and into history.  Amazingly only twelve years later man would walk on the moon.  Since the end of the Apollo progeram one has to wonder if the intervining years of space exploration have been wasted.  I would say that they have not been wasted, but rather under utilized.  Our continuing efforts in space have returned massive dividends here on earth, but we need to and finaly are resuming the path of outward human exploration of our solar system.  The Orion program to return to the moon is a well thought out and well designed program, it combines the early NASA grand vision and seemingly impossible goal (manned missions to mars by 2030 or so)  with all of the knowledge and experince NASA has gained through the shuttle and robotic exploration programs of the last thirty five years.  What will the next fifty years of the Space Age bring?  Who knows, but I would benture to guess that in the next twenty five years Space will be opened to the average man and woman as commercial space tourism and other commercial ventures in space go from a niche market catering to the super rich (current) then the well to do (SpaceShip 2, 5 years or so away) to afforable to all (10-15 years from now).

Posted by: raging tachikoma at 07:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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