SpaceX
Unfortunately, the monumental event of SpaceX launching the manned Dragon 2 into space atop a Falcon 9 rocket got slightly overshadowed with everything else going on in the world. For us space nerds however, this was another giant leap towards going to Mars and everybody paid attention. This is HUGE! And how far we have advanced with these privately built rockets is simply amazing.
I would love to see at least a return to the moon in my lifetime and this gives me hope it might actually happen.
The space suits however … well … at least they are functional. And what I thought was really hilarious was the corded microphone aboard Dragon 2. Even our 2009 Camry already had Bluetooth! Or do you guys think it’s to prove to the nay-sayers and flat-earthers that they are actually in space which would be hard to show with an earpiece?
Of course, the event did not go unnoticed by Chuck either. But unlike me, Chuck actually thinks he’s cut out for this kind of mission. Will SpaceX ever call him back? He is starting to run out of options after getting rejected by NASA and by Virgin Galactic. I bet we can all agree that a chicken in space would actually be really hilarious to watch!
Mike
First man on Mars is likely to happen in the next 20 years, but the risk is that, like the moon, there will not be another one for half a century. What we really need is a drastic reduction of cost in access to space, and this can happen only with space lifters. A straight one (from ground to geostationnary orbit) is far out of reach yet, but there was a paper from skunk works I can no longer find on the Internet that had a plan, with hypersonic planes hooking on the lifters at low orbits, that seemed quite feasible. Time to put them back to work !
The biggest problem with space travel is, and always has been, monetary value for the launch. The easiest solution would be to mine titanium on the moon. With regular mining runs everything else falls into place. Harvesting asteroids would eventually be an excellent source of high grade iron.
“First man on Mars” – except if it were a woman 🙂 ? DOWN WITH SEXISM!!!!