Independent Space companies, and billionaires eager to mine space have created a new competitive business in America. John Lewis, a leading expert on space resources, and professor of cosmochemistry and planetary atmospheres at the University of Arizona claims the “future of space resource exploitation lies in the private sector” (Leonard). Private companies and individuals have their eye on the prize and are determined to be the first to mine space. In his address to the nation on Labor Day in 1971, president Richard Nixon said the competitive spirit "lifted itself into the position of the most powerful and respected leader of the free world” (Nixon). Private companies are keeping this competitive spirit alive today as they race to bring in …show more content…
Deep Space Industries is building “autonomous spacecraft that can extract minerals from asteroids” (Tynan) expected to launch this year. John Brophy the co-leader of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory claims mining space is “feasible using technology available in this decade” (David), however the feasibility is dependent three advancements; ground based observations, propulsions system, and human presence. Prospectors know asteroids contain large amounts of valuable resource, however they have faced challenges pinpointing mining locations. Improving ground based observation will allow prospectors to target asteroids and mine more efficiently. Perhaps the most challenging technological advancements is developing a “sufficiently powerful solar electric propulsion system” (Leonard), necessary to bring an asteroid back to lunar orbit. The last important advancement necessary to conduct space mining missions is the human presence in lunar orbit to “investigate and exploit this resource” (Leonard). Developing technology to access and mine asteroids is crucial the space mining missions. The three conceptual advancements are an important in developing technology to gathering resources from space. Technological advancements mean space mining is a realistic goal within the next century, promising a bright future for humans on earth. Additionally, the technology developed to mine asteroids will
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is one of the leading organizations in space technology and research. In the past 60 years, NASA has sent numerous satellites, telescopes and crew modules into space. Despite drawbacks in launch failures and lack of funding, NASA continues to focus on its mission in space exploration and technological advancement. One of NASA’s projects is to explore deep space, in which entails a manned missions to Mars, exploration of the asteroid belt, and beyond. With these goals in mind, NASA has engineered new rocketry and even created a program to better allocate costs of such conquests. With these new advancements, NASA has created a new age of how space travel is carried out.
“One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” said Neil Armstrong, the first man to be on the moon. Mankind has benefited so much from the Space Race. The Space Race was a Cold War competition between NASA and the USSR to reach the moon. The Space Race took place from 1957 up until 1975. On May 26, 1961, President Kennedy laid the Soviet challenge before the American people. During the Cold War, around a hundred space advancements were made. In the 20th century, more space breakthroughs happened after the moon landing itself. A few more moon landings followed Apollo 11. The Space Race had a positive effect on the world. Before the Space Race, most of the space exploration had been done by robots (Miller
The world today revolves around technology and is in an ever upward spiraling path of new advancements. This path is now at what some people call the “final frontier”, or the space age. The discoveries being made on this front are overwhelming in comparison to the technology that the world had only twenty years ago. Space exploration was once left up to the governments, as they battled to be the first country in space, but with national debts raising and the cuts made in response, space exploration is beginning to become new grounds for private business owners. Private companies are already beginning to send off rockets at a fraction of the cost that government does, but if more money was put into the government space program, then they
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is perhaps the most well known space agency in the world. Since its formation in 19581, it has pioneered in space science, yet is also renowned for its large budget. NASA has the highest budget of any space agency, $18.6 billion2 in 2015, the equivalent of every American paying $54 towards the agency3, meaning 0.14% of total GDP is spent on NASA3 . This money is spent on the ISS, sending astronauts, probes and satellites into space, astrophysics and planetary science research, maintaining and developing NASA’s space telescopes (the Wide Field Infrared Survey telescope searching for dark energy and exoplanets, the James Webb Space Telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope) and developing spacecraft2. Space exploration is an incredibly expensive process with one shuttle launch costing $450 million4 however NASA’s colossal budget benefits the USA greatly; the agency employs 18,000 people5 as astronauts, engineers, scientists and teachers and G. Scott Hubbard, former director of the NASA Ames Research Center estimates that every dollar spent on NASA returns $8 to the economy6.While this figure is an estimate, it demonstrates NASA’s worth and capacity for money making. NASA works on pioneering research and as its patents and licenses return to the US treasury, it
The amount of accomplishments America has achieved in the area of space research is staggering. We have sent man to the moon, landed rovers, and discovered uncountable celestial bodies just by telescope! There are many benefits of space exploration, making it absolutely worth the cost. Some of these benefits are creating new beneficial jobs, and expanding our knowledge. While some argue there are drawbacks to space exploration, I think that the benefits outweigh these drawbacks. In addition, we desire to explore the unknown. As Georgia Douglass Johnson said the the poem “Your World”, in stanza 1 “Your world is as big as you make it”. This means that we can do whatever we want, as long as we’re determined.
The Space Race was a time of great exploration, and created many new techniques in the studies of science and technology. Many new techniques of engineering and technological advances resulted as positives of the Space Race. The cause of this great exploration and learning was fueled by rivalry and competitiveness of two governments, the Soviet Union and The United States. The Soviet Union and the United States were in a race to see which could reach space supremacy first. This rivalry unfolded in front of millions of spectators, and instilled a sense of competiveness into the viewers. During the mid nineteen-sixties, the achievements of the United States space program caused them to leap ahead of the Soviet Union space program, which was very unexpected. The achievements by the United States during the Space Race in the nineteen-sixties created a gap in space exploration between the Soviet Union space program and the United States space program because the United States was able extremely motivated by government forces and was able to achieve great technological advances in their space crafts.
College is the pinnacle of any education known to humankind, the sanctuary of knowledge, and the birth of new ideas and idealists. Since the University of Al-Karaouine was commissioned in 859 A.D., colleges have expanded their range of teachings from mathematics, physics, and foreign languages to many diverse fields that deal with nearly every aspect of today’s world. More academic institutions were established over the next millennia, but only a privileged few would be able to attend the schools of Paris, Oxford, and Montpelier. In addition to beneficial education in particular fields, colleges offer positive factors for their students. These factors include building relationships with students and professors while improving one’s standing
Our loss of standing as the number one space faring nation will also greatly impact the nation on a psychological level. Americans have always been pioneers, innovators, and technological leaders; if we lose that standing it could cause a national identity crisis. Now we will break down the costs and benefits of the United States space program to help us better understand whether or not we should continue to fund it with taxpayer money.
“Your world is as big as you make it”. Georgia Douglas Johnson once said in her poem “Your World”. Space exploration allows America to generate a great amount of money. If America continues space exploration, new discoveries can be made. Greater wealth and new discoveries could and will better America. This is why space exploration is worth the cost.
Space exploration has exploded in the past 56 years. From the first successful satellite mission in 1961, to the first mission space walk in 1969 a to the first time lettuce was grown and eaten in space in 2015. These are just the beginning steps towards potential space exploration and advancing technology to the maximum.
Neil Armstrong 's 1969 lunar landing was one of humanity 's greatest accomplishments. Since then, we have found that an infinite supply of knowledge and resources await us just outside our atmosphere. Today, however, critics are beginning to argue more and more that the cost of space exploration is too high, and therefore new technological developments should be left to the private sector. Whether funded privately or by the government, funding of space exploration is imperative because NASA is essentially the only agency with the technological capabilities to support aircraft manufacturing, air safety and air transportation. Space exploration has also resulted in remarkable innovations that has played a key role in aeronautics research, preventative medicine, and allows scientists to study asteroids, along with other space debris and their impacts on Earth.
For many years humans have been exploring space to discover the unknown and fuel their curious and adventurous nature, but the decision of whether space exploration is worth the cost is strongly debated. Due to various arguments and evidence space exploration is strongly supported is proven to be worth the cost. Some of these reasons include space exploration being able to expand our knowledge and it being able to generate wealth. With these reasons the argument of whether space exploration is worth the risk can be easily decided.
Space travel has become a growing event in the world and has assisted in advancing our knowledge as well as providing information about the solar system. As the human race continues to grow, the need for resources continues to grow as well and finding new places to inhabit as well as being able to find new resources is becoming more important. The issue that needs to be addressed currently is the air quality onboard the space habitats, stations and vehicles. There have been advancements in that section, but new challenges arise that have negative impacts on the crew. Despite these issues, however, there is not an immediate need to stop space exploration as long as these issues are being worked on.
The mysterious vastness beyond Earth has allured many scientists to explore and contribute much of their effort to the understanding of space. Although humans have been looking up at space for thousands of years, the physical exploration of this frontier has been only going on for the past few decades. Our current understanding of space is unparalleled to any time before in our history, but we still only know a small fraction of what there is to learn. Governments around the world spend about $40 billion dollars a year (Rockefeller, 2010) hoping to undertake tasks such as “human exploration of the solar system” to discovering the origins of life itself (Tatarewicz, 2009, p. 531). Recently, the private sector has also shown interest in space exploration in order to engage in profitable activities such as harnessing minerals from asteroids. Although it is easy to debate about the benefits and negatives of space exploration in its entirety, it is simpler focus on one aspect of it - the direct effect it has to those down on Earth. Rather than trying to decide whether or not going to other planets is worth it, this paper will argue about the value of the terrestrial benefits of space exploration. It is an important topic to think about as programs such as space exploration change lives and help acquire knowledge. Despite the large costs associated with space exploration, the multitude of discoveries in the past few decades has greatly improved daily life on Earth, the jobs the
This article is useful to my research because of the analysis of the relationship between each step in space exploration and the possible benefits in the science field. Although this article is shorter than most of other resources, it clearly explains the whole processes of space exploration as a benign cycle, space resources produce economy, economy provides technologies, technologies creates opportunities to future exploration, future exploration leads to more discoveries and resources, and then back to increase in economy. It is a unique perspective of explaining the reason why we need to explore outer space and mining resources, each step produces considerable benefits.