beyond earth
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Beyond earth. Thomas Abraham . Today’s lecture. Commercialisation of near earth activities Three scientific areas goals for space exploration: Search for new frontiers for human habitation and exploitation Search for extra terrestrial life: planets where forms of life might exist - PowerPoint PPT PresentationTRANSCRIPT
Beyond earthThomas Abraham
Today’s lecture Commercialisation of near earth
activitiesThree scientific areas goals for space exploration: Search for new frontiers for human
habitation and exploitation Search for extra terrestrial life: planets
where forms of life might exist Search for understanding of the
universe, its origins and its structure
Today’s lecture China’s space plans Conflict and cooperation in space
The age of private space exploitation SpaceX- a company started by Elon
Musk, 41 year old entrepreneur who developed PayPal
http://www.spacex.com/index.php Richard Branson hopes to take the first
passengers into space by end 2013http://www.virgingalactic.com/ Mining asteroids
What does all this mean? Near space is slowly becoming part of
our world In the way that we expanded our world
by exploring new continents, now our world is being expanded by the conquest of near space
An important step for the human race
Endeavour Crater, Mars. March 9 2012
The scientific quest “We are in the middle of a major
revolution in the understanding of the origin and evolution of the solar system and if there is life beyond Earth” Jim Green, Director, Planetary Science Division NASA
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/carolyn_porco_flies_us_to_saturn.html
The prime targets for exploration: Mars The Obama administration had declared
the ultimate destination for human exploration to be Mars
But budget cuts on Mars programmes-two planned Mars probes with the European Space Agency have been dropped
NASA still hopes a 2018 mission to collect samples from Mars will happen
2030s date for a manned mission
Curiosity- NASA’s latest Mars rover. Launched Nov 26 last year.Expected to land on Mars in August.
More on planetary exploration http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/
lpsc2012/
China’s space programme Oct 15, 2003 China becomes the third
country after the US and USSR to put a man into space independently
Oct 12 2005, Shenzhou 6 takes two astronauts into space
Oct 1.2010- China’s launches moon exploration sattelite
2011- Tiangong 1, the first part of an orbiting space station was launched
Future plans June 2012- Shenzhou 9 will dock with
Tiangong 1? Unmanned moon landing 2013 Build an orbiting space station by
around 2015 Manned lunar missions by 2020/25
International cooperation The International Space station;
launched in 1998 – joint project between US, Russia, Japan, Europe and Canada
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?collection_id=66521&media_id=97766082
Some sources to follow NASA- www.nasa.gov Science and Nature The private companies involved China National Space administrationhttp://www.cnsa.gov.cn/n615709/cindex.html