Space Colonization?

 Once the 1960's dream!

Now soon to be a fact with several Moon bases, a new space station and going to to Mars, if not further afield?

Elon Musk is the man with the vision and the re-usable rocket is making way for this to happen, but what is the reality of living on a dust swept bowl and how will scientists cope with possible mental breakdowns as currently is occurring on the International Space Station (ISS)?

This will not be the first time, the Russians under the Soviet Union faced a prolonged flight, which is the longest for anyone to be in space alone!

There are so many questions related to space travel and the effects of it on the human body, China has done well with their station by introducing gravity and it is hoped that other things like converting water ice to hydrogen will power what is needed with solar and recycling urine?

But this can only go to a point, growing food and a change to metabolism and body strength will be new issues that are not yet known about fully, the money and the prestige will make people famous but it may be another seventy years before we see real population growth?

Racing car Fuels?

 And the effects on Global Warming!

This is a world-wide popular sport that basically uses aviation type fuels, if not that of rocket combustion chemicals and there is little data to tell us what damage is being done to the atmosphere if not higher up to?

We tend to blame everything the burning of fossil fuels, but it remains unclear about these fuels and how our made made radiation is effecting the climate too!

Most of the Middle-East that host this sport during the winter months do not believe the COP conference data, which they say proves nothing and now that deals on fossils are being done what is the point of complying by rules that are getting broken?

With Trump back in power, he wants musk to start drilling on Mars for detected fossil amounts, so that car racing and other can continue, while a space dock could be built in space, what a visionary!!!

Will NASA ever restart the Space Shuttle Again?

 Problems with Elon Musk!

His personal life and X is causing him many problems world wide and it could see him loose serious military contracts, if not even his Space programme over antisemitism, if he does not get himself in order?

If Space-X was to fail in the current order books for NASA and the International Space station, and both re-usable rockets to the Moon and Mars, the old Space shuttle might be a better choice to revive in a more modern form?

It all comes down to money, investment and the sins of the human heart, that no matter with we are a trillionair or a beggar we are all in the same boat

Off to the Moon! Part-Two.

Stepping Stones?

It is still not known if the U.S. government will keep the International Space station going in favour of commitments to a New Moon base, but what is clear this will be part of the next step to go on to establishing something more permanent  on Mars?

Claims of six to thirty years are still the various estimated times for such missions, commercially it might be six years to pull off a stunt, but to be serious thirty is more practicable since many things still require testing and approval?

With the recent discovery of water on the poles of the Moon, this will encourage the base plans to go ahead perhaps within the next six years, but keeping ISS has a half-way point would be wise in the initial stages of this vast project!

New Technology. Part-One.

Drones to Robotics?

Much of what we are terming new has been around for some time in one form or another, but the applications are perhaps newer rather than new? Drones are improving all the time and plans for deployment in the Mars mission as a helicopter have been suggested, while back on Earth the police and search and rescue are using them with effective search and observation results!

Robotics, as in Androids are also improving but no suggestion as yet for sending into Space has been made? On the industrial front, they will perhaps in years to come have a great advantage with helping older folks and young children and the disabled as in both cases!

There are many military applications for both, at this time many poorer nations will probably opt for drones over that of Robots or Androids for border patrols and police work? Drones are much cheaper to deploy than helicopters, unless a large area needs covering or someone in trouble needs to be rescued?

Off to the Moon! Part-One.

The Trump Mission?

For humanity to return to the Moon will cost billions if not trillions and something will have to give way, so it has been decided that the International Space station will have to go within the next few years? 

The United States of America is determined to beat China getting to the Moon in this next fifteen year period and the U.S. wants to do what JF Kennedy pressured NASA to do forty years ago, but with a base rather than just landing and coming home!

The problems with this are enormous, if their is no Space station as a stepping stone on these proposed missions! The ISS has at least another twenty good years of operational service and Russia will perhaps have to foot the bill for its replacement?

A Moon base may never really become that stepping stone to Mars as is being promised, to maintain it will be very difficult even with 6% gravity over that of none? Trump wants to undermine the Kennedy legacy as much as he is doing politically to Obamas!

Elon Musk!

In trouble over a failed Launch?

Space is still a tricky business we may be able to launch rockets weekly up the International Space Station as well military spying, but from time to time there will be failures since humans are not perfect and make mistakes?

Musk has promised much in relation to taking men back to the Moon after forty years and reaching to Mars, with his new re-usable rockets? But this is still new and untested systems that need to be fine-lined, even the Space Shuttle still had teething problems that NASA failed to address at the cost of precious scientific lives for the prestige!

We are only sixty-one years into the Space race exploration, man has reached Pluto and now beyond! Gone to the Moon and built several Space stations culminating in the ISS! Soviet Russia/Russia and the United States were the first to dominate this race from 1957!

But now other nations have now joined this Space club, China, Japan, Europe, India, Israel and more are coming along such as Brazil, Nigeria and Iran!

U.S.A. Space Expansion.

Trump Promises.

Space exploration will perhaps make the United States of America great again, much has been promised and one thinks Mr. Trump will try! The Space-X testing and return missions are improved and now working, but they are a chance thing, which remain to dangerous to put humans into space?

Co-operation with Russia may lead to the combination of Shuttle technology to develop newer systems to have that very good re-usable platform again? Plans to build a Moon base and to have a half point station to Mars will lead within the next thirty years to getting people living on the red planet.

Space also offers much research into the use of tougher materials for building, that will be cheaper than relying on metals? There are many new needs of investigations to get underway in relation to sending robotic ships to land on Pluto, investigate Uranus and Neptune and a few more interesting places too?

48 to 8 Hours.

Getting up to the Space Station.

Twenty years ago it took just over two days to get up to the Russian MIR Space station, this week we saw the three way Russian, ESA, U.S. mission do it in less than eight hours even with a technical fault. What amazing achievements with the tried and tested second generation MM Soyuz-Progress vehicles over that of the flamboyant yet very dangerous U.S. Space shuttle.

Timings into space are speeding up, while duration flights of just over one year at the moment cuts a possible manned trip to Mars in the next 30 years. The joint Moon base, will perhaps prepare us for that giant return trip to Mars, in say 50 years from now. 

There remains so many dangers in space travel, after nearly 58 years from Sputnik, that the next 50 will give us enough time to develop better space ships perhaps between the ISS and the Moon base. Familiarity with living their will be the key to any future Mars mission and then further out?

Space Travel.

What's new Pussycat?

Since the retirement of that fantastic space plane, the U.S Space Shuttle what does the future hold? it looks like Mars is the next target for human exploration between 2025 and 2035, it is hoped to send two missions on long range space ships to the red planet.

The first is a one way commercial venture, while the second will perhaps be a fully focused government funded scientific mission. but both hope to set up their own Martian bases. Much of the research into the establishment of these bases has for years been carried out in Antarctica and Soviet/Russian Cosmonaut underwater training facilities.

The current fleet of ROBOT/ Rovers on Mars is sending back a variety of interesting data, which reveals possible past life possibilities, probable existing atmospheric conditions?

Narrow Gauge Railways. Part-Two.

Modern Systems...

(New article now on the Space Page for those who are interested).

Narrow gauge railways have over the last 100 years have been adapted for Metro system travel, such as in Paris, France. While Iceland built a 27 mile long network of narrow gauge railway to help in the building of an energy hydro plant. This is the longest underground service railway in the world.

Nuclear power plants have employed narrow gauge into their systems as well as mainline railways.

Many new engine designs are now available, replacing the improvised tractors and the early steam. Meanwhile many others railways are now great historical tourists pullers, while others like the bog or peat production continue to do both, work and tourism.

Man on Mars.

This is the next target.

Man on the moon 'One big step for mankind.' Man on Mars 'Second big leap for Humanity.' It is claimed that within the next 30- 50 years, we will see a manned mission to the red planet Mars. Currently the rovers on Mars are finding interesting earth like clays only a few inches under the top soil. Humans on the planet would be much better to do a variety of work.

Radiation exposure is probably the biggest problem with living in the Martian environment. There is of course always the unknown factor?

It is also very probable, due to financial restraints that the Mars mission will be very much an international one. Unless other nations, such as China, N-Korea and Iran make it first?

'Virgin Space Vehicle'

Richard Branson is a man who is making his mark on history and why not. It is his dream to see space flight in near earth orbit as a reality for everyone. Branson has also been the man who wants to re-vitalize the Concorde and supersonic travel. 

The continued development of the inner orbit vehicle will be the first of a generation, this century anyway of more designs and perhaps one day even the defunct Space shuttle too will allow commercial travel into space. Current space stations such as the ISS could be developed into a type pleasure station, or perhaps flights to a moon base or something further afield.

These are the first steps to the future of space travel. What will be the answers to all this in one hundred years from now?

Star Ships.

Space the final frontier.

When are we going to build a real space ship? It is unlikely to be in the near future, but plans are underway to send a mission to Mars and the Asteroid belt within the next fifty-years. The development of some form of long-range endurance ship will have to be designed and constructed probably in space near to the ISS. 

This space ship will not be as dramatic or spectacular as the ships of popular science-fiction, such as the Enterprise or Destiny in Star gate universe.

UAV...

Unmanned Ariel Vehicle.

The history of this type of aircraft, began in World-War-II (1939-45) when Nazi-Germany under the Dictatorship of Adolf Hitler demanded a series of vengeance weapons to be designed and built in secret if all else failed in his Axis conflict. It was the Von Braun (designer of the U.S. Saturn rocket and the Space shuttle) team who initially came up with the V-1 flying bomb (known in the UK as the doodle bug). 

After the war in 1945 both Russia and the U.S. made a mad race to capture as much German technology, and so work started on the modern family of unmanned aircraft we today see being deployed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan to take out militant and terrorist strongholds.

Israel over the years has built up its series of unmanned aircraft in it Scout and rangers, which much smaller than the U.S. counterparts but do the same jobs. This technology in combination with satellite guidance, saves troops on the ground, but it also has been adopted into civil aircraft flight systems, the various space programmes, Mar's lander's and the ISS.