Essay on The Recent History of Planetary Exploration

The world population of 7.2 billion in mid-2013 is projected to increase by almost one billion people within the next twelve years. It is projected to reach 8.1 billion in 2025, and to further increase to 9.6 billion in 2050 and 10.9 billion by 2100. This assumes a decline of fertility for countries where large families are still prevalent as well as a slight increase of fertility in several countries with fewer than two children per woman on average.

For many years it has been thought that the maximum human population would be determined by the amount of drinkable fresh water. Earth can only hold, manage, and support so many people. This is called carrying capacity. If we go over this carrying capacity it could cause worldwide issues with the environment along with many other issues. For example if the human population goes over the carrying capacity of the earth then problems like lack of clean drinkable water, lack of land that humans could live on or occupy, and lack of available jobs could become much more serious and have terrible effects on the system which everything works.

There are more than seven billion people on Earth now, and about one in eight of us don’t have enough food to eat. So, with a projected nine billion people by the year 2050, how many people can the Earth support while maintaining a healthy population? Population changes are due to the relationship between births and deaths. If the number of births equals the number of deaths then the world’s population will remain the same, but if births exceed deaths, population growth will occur. Early in history, population was slowly growing because of high death rates related to wars, famines, and poor medical services. With advances in

Earth has not yet, reached its carrying capacity. Many people believe that Earth’s resources are running out due to the human population exponential growth, and the linear growth of food supply. The document, “Has Earth Reached its Carrying Capacity?” by Julia Layton, points out the fact that if the human population does more to extend the amount of resources available to us, we can increase Earth’s carrying capacity. For example, On page one, Paragraph four, Layton writes, “...technological advancement... they(scientist) have argued that this human ability allows food production to grow exponentially, as well.” Many advances in technology have giving us a wide range of information. Some of which could help us, now or in the future, to create

Carl Sagan once said “every planetary civilization will be endangered by impacts from space, every surviving civilization is obliged to become spacefaring--not because of exploratory or romantic zeal, but for the most practical reason imaginable: staying alive... If our long-term survival is at stake, we have a basic responsibility to our species to venture to other worlds.” The National Aeronautics and Space Administration or NASA, is executing Sagan’s words every day. President Dwight D. Eisenhower created NASA in 1958 with the purpose of peaceful rather than military space exploration and research to contribute to society. Just 11 years after the creation, NASA put Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon, the first humans to

On May 25, 1961 President John F. Kennedy gave an inspirational speech stating, “I believe this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to Earth” (“Apollo 11”). This small statement would make a huge impact on the world. Amazingly enough a short eight years later Apollo 11 would lift off from Kennedy Space Center. Inside would contain two men, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, who would live out the rest of their lives in fame of being the first humans on the

Ever since humanity has been able to look up and view the stars, forever gaining a better view, mankind has desired to go to space. Slowly gaining the ability of mobility, mankind has invented the wheel, then the automobile, and then aircraft. However, what lies in our recent past is the greatest achievement in reaching new frontiers so far - that is, reaching the moon. The Apollo 11 is responsible for accomplishing the basic mission of the Apollo Program; that is, to land two men on the lunar surface and return them safely to earth.

On July 21, 1969, the United States rocket Apollo 11 landed on the moon, marking a monumental and unprecedented feat of mankind. Culminated as the product of breakthrough innovations in engineering and physics and overwhelming government support (which granted NASA over 4% of the federal budget), the moon landing was the crowning moment of NASA’s accomplishments. At that time, a new era of space exploration seemed to be on the verge of occurrence. However, fifty years later, NASA has seemed to have fallen from its old glory, with the United States Federal government spending only 0.5% of the nation’s federal budget on its space endeavors. With increased concerns of NASA’s

Around the 50’s and 60’s, the United States and the Soviet Union had a “competition” called the Space Race. “They raced each other in achieving significant firsts in space”(Brigham). The Soviet Union beat the United States in the first satellite, first human in orbit, and the first space walk. But then, the United States stepped in with the first rendezvous in space, the first extension of mission durations in more than a week, and the first docking of space crafts. Later, the United states orbited the moon, and then the famous Apollo 11 mission was when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first stepped foot on the moon.

“Nothing since Apollo has come close to the excitement that was generated by those astronauts: Armstrong, Aldrin, and the ten others who followed them”. (“Apollo”). Being launched on the fourteenth of July in the year 1969, Apollo 11 had created a whole new period of space exploration and technology, defeating the Soviets in the Space Race, and bringing the end of the Cold War closer and to our favor. The Apollo 11 Mission had taken a major part in forming what is now today’s science, technology, and society.

On July 20, 1969 America finally became first in the protracted space race with the Soviets. On that day for America, Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin of Apollo 11 became the first humans to step foot on the moon. This of course was a massive victory alongside the Soviet Union. “ The first men to land on the moon were launched from the site of KSC (Kennedy Space Center) in 1969, and every human space flight launch in the United States since that time has taken place from the Kennedy Space Center” (Rogier). “Apollo was the NASA program that resulted in American astronauts' making an aggregate of 11 spaceflights a total of 12 astronauts having walked on the moon conducting research there

This increase of the human population is staggering, and the effect it will have on Earth is devastating. Questions will start to come up more frequently regarding the global food supplies, pressures on the environment, and the energy resources.

As a baby in the Philippines was born on October 31, 2011, the UN celebrated the rise of the world’s population to seven billion people. There are numerous aspects that make up this extreme population growth. However, the cons greatly outweigh the pros. The human population cannot continue to grow at the current exponential growth rate because the environment will not be able to sustain itself.

Imagine a world of too many people. How can we deal with this? Can we minimize its effects? How do we take care of the future? The late Carl Sagan played an important role trying to make us understand that our planet is an insignificant Pale Blue Dot, (book) lost in a corner of the Milky Way Galaxy. The awareness, created by his book with the same title, led me to think on the Earth 's land surface which is 149,000,000 km². Well, this number is not going to increase, I thought. As time goes by, more and more people are stepping into our planet which will reach about 11 billion by the year 2100. Although the planet might be able to support this number, what might happen if it is surpassed? Overpopulation is a problem that must be addressed. But, wait! There are people who are convinced that such thing will never happen. Our ingenuity, they say, it is more than able to take care of that situation. Those were the principles and questions that made me embark on this research venture, trying to appeal to a larger discussion, among ecologists/environmentalists, about the pros and cons of what seems to be travelling towards reaching the point of no return.

The Earth 's inadequate supply of natural resources will only be able to tolerate 2 billion humans by 2100, the bad thing about that is, is that the world already feeds and supports 5.9 billion. The ideal human population, or carrying capacity, for the U.S. is projected to be 200 million, which is way fewer than the current population of the United States. This is a growing problem in not only the United States but also around our world today. The growing of population can lead to the diminishing of more than one or two of our natural resources. For more than a couple years the population has been growing faster than our renewable and non-renewable resources. Not only will we have