Notes from the author: The Next Thirty Years of Space Exploration

Greetings gentle readers. Thanks for being here. Philip the Bard is still recovering from the wedding and the beginning of the Winterfest Football Tournament. Me, I’m recovering from my beloved Oakland Raiders giving up 56 points but I am here for you all anyway.

Today the topic is the future of space exploration. I grew up in the 50s and 60s when humanity was taking its very first steps off of the homeworld. It was an exciting time to be alive. How many people were inspired to study the sciences because of our early attempts to escape the bonds of Earthly gravity?

By the end of the 60’s we’d placed several people on the surface of the moon. Man, we were on our way!

Then, people got bored with science. Going back to the moon was not nearly as exciting as getting there the first time. We quit paying attention. Then two of our space shuttles crashed. Things seemed to be slowing. We were loosing our momentum.

Or were we? 

Well, certainly we did loose some, but in the background our scientists and engineers have been working. We are making progress. 

I firmly believe that we need both socialism and capitalism to survive as a society. I believe we currently have too much capitalism and not enough socialism but here in space exploration  is a place where more capitalism is called for. We would not have got as far as we have without the people’s investment in the space program. Now, however, private enterprise is stepping into the fray and very soon we will see the fruits of their involvement.

I’m just over sixty years old. If I live another thirty years what will I see as far as the expansion of the human race off of Earth?

In the next thirty years we will see tourists in space. We will see people living on Mars and we will have unmanned probes exploring most of the planets in the solar system. I would expect  some serious attempts to explore some of Jupiter’s moons. Titan and Europa are both very intriguing.

Will we be traveling to the stars? Not in the next thirty years.

Tomorrow we’ll talk about the long term prospects for traveling to the stars. 

Earth Year 2013

Never mix red wine with Oodo.