This year was a great year of 2014 for the world, but especially for SPACE TRAVEL, IN SPACE!(Say that in your most epic voice possible). I mean we've had some of the coolest space events recently since the whole "Man lands on the moon!" But also some of the best movies and games IN SPACE! (Civilization Beyond Earth, and Interstellar -Both are really great because they're IN SPACE!) But I'm here to talk about news story's in 2014 as to look back at what great things humanity has overcome, and not complain about Interstellar's plot holes, or how about Civ B.E is just Civ 5 all over again! So lets dive right in!
First I want to talk about the amazing feat of how a European Space Agency managed to land a lander, on a comet, I am of course talking about the Rosetta Comet Landing . The names of the equipment used was the Philae lander, Fig 1, and the Rosetta probe/spacecraft, Fig 2.
Fig 1: The Philae Lander
Fig 2: The Rosetta probe/spacecraft
They were sent to land on the comet for research, and managed to do it. Although that may not sound impressive, let me try to make it a little more realistic and impressive. They landed a remote controlled flying piece of metal on a relatively small rock hurdling in space at great speeds that is 510 miles away from earth (for Americans 310 miles) by landing and harpooning the rock to keep steady and on it. That sounds a little harder then landing a lander on a rock, IN SPACE!
This project also took 10 YEARS to get it to the comet, no that's not a typo, it took literally 10 YEARS! They launched this when I was four! That's ridiculous, but what impresses me even more is how they used 10 year old technology to get it on to that comet, still running on windows vista and windows xp, and the cost of it all 1.8 BILLION us dollars! 1.8 BILLION, also not a typo.
Now you may be asking yourself "Why waste your time and resources doing something so hard and dumb?" I reply to "First off its not dumb, its the literal definition of awesome "causing or inducing awe; inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear."
I quote Dictionary.com directly on that. But second off, doing this feat of greatness earned the scientists and everyone behind the lander fame/recognition, it also will help us with research of comets, how they came to be, why, etc.
Although with every good mission there comes problems. No I'm not going to talk about the hypocritical feminists who complained about clothes one of the guys who worked on the rocket was wearing even though they complain that they can't wear certain clothes without being ridiculed etc.
But there is one problem with the lander right now, its out of fuel, IN SPACE. Well actually its on the comet and by out of fuel I mean its not getting enough sun to let the solar panels get enough power to turn it on and leave it on, so its currently deactivated, so they have to wait for the comet to get close to the sun or a better position etc. There also comes the problem of the comet which we have no control over, The comet could break apart or explode or just get destroyed at any second because that's what comets do. All we can do now is just wait and hope, and if you like to, pray.
Our Second story is all about another space launch, but rather then it being about unmanned drones going to distant comets in the universe, instead NASA has launched a rocket, that was able to orbit earth and come back to the atmosphere in 1 piece, AND not only that, it landed right in the ocean without water damage! This is of course the ORION spacecraft see Fig 3.
Fig 3: The Orion Capsule having been lifted from the water.
So lets go into detail about this mission. First off lets talk about the spacecraft. The Orion is like any spacecraft, with a capsule and a rocket to propel it, See fig 4(that's it in a very basic form, its much more complex then that.) They rocket allows it to get into earths orbit and then from a safe distance it disconnects it from the capsule then allowing the rocket to either become space junk or land on earth (somewhere safe of course, you don't have to worry about a giant rocket destroying your house.) Where it can be collected. The design of the ship is much like that of the Apollo ships, which brought man to the Moon, IN SPACE! Now the same sort of ship design, with many improvements such as; longer life support, more space, better technology, better physical ship design on the ship itself. The ship can house up to four people for space missions and can support 6 months and 21 days in total, (there are a bunch of factors for that one but that's the best we can get.) The space ship was designed to be able to take humans to asteroids near earth and even Mars! The great name of the ship that took man to the moon, will now take another great step for mankind.
Fig 4: The Orion Spacecraft
My third story and final story is cool, its a story about MARS ONE. If you haven't heard about Mars One let me explain it to you. A group of people have been chosen to be sent to you guessed it, Mars. Although the program started in 2011, when the Mars One program was founded, it still exists and is in its very early years, if it was a person, it would be a toddler. They currently have 100 people where they will have 24 of them chosen for the final pick to go live on Mars. You can see a small trailer for it here. They also have several stages and a road map explaining there goal and when they hope to accomplish it and how they hope to accomplish it, which you can find here. How will they do the mission? Well they will start with small steps, sending packages to Mars and setting up a communications relay between Mars and Earth, see Fig 5. They will then start to send bigger packages to Mars around 2020 and at 2026 and 2027 they will send human beings to Mars, see Fig 6 for the housing. They live there off of plants and other things they can create infinitely like solar power. So the big question is: Why send people to Mars? Well if you send people to Mars that means you can do many things. You can stream it live and make money off it, make it a TV show, but also SCIENCE. Being on Mars will allow us to make many scientific discoveries in many fields of science, like medical and geological science, who knows we could even find the cure for cancer! Mars One may achieve great things for human kind, and I just hope that they can manage to succeed.
Fig 5: The communications Relay
Fig 6: The Housing the astronauts will live in.
This concludes the TOP 3 big space news stories of 2014, thanks for reading and have a great day, I'm going back to my Civilization Beyond Earth!
Sources:
http://www.mars-one.com/about-mars-one
http://www.space.com/27740-rosetta-comet-landing-success.html
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/orion/#.VLzs4SvF-So
First I want to talk about the amazing feat of how a European Space Agency managed to land a lander, on a comet, I am of course talking about the Rosetta Comet Landing . The names of the equipment used was the Philae lander, Fig 1, and the Rosetta probe/spacecraft, Fig 2.
Fig 2: The Rosetta probe/spacecraft
They were sent to land on the comet for research, and managed to do it. Although that may not sound impressive, let me try to make it a little more realistic and impressive. They landed a remote controlled flying piece of metal on a relatively small rock hurdling in space at great speeds that is 510 miles away from earth (for Americans 310 miles) by landing and harpooning the rock to keep steady and on it. That sounds a little harder then landing a lander on a rock, IN SPACE!
This project also took 10 YEARS to get it to the comet, no that's not a typo, it took literally 10 YEARS! They launched this when I was four! That's ridiculous, but what impresses me even more is how they used 10 year old technology to get it on to that comet, still running on windows vista and windows xp, and the cost of it all 1.8 BILLION us dollars! 1.8 BILLION, also not a typo.
Now you may be asking yourself "Why waste your time and resources doing something so hard and dumb?" I reply to "First off its not dumb, its the literal definition of awesome "causing or inducing awe; inspiring an overwhelming feeling of reverence, admiration, or fear."
I quote Dictionary.com directly on that. But second off, doing this feat of greatness earned the scientists and everyone behind the lander fame/recognition, it also will help us with research of comets, how they came to be, why, etc.
Although with every good mission there comes problems. No I'm not going to talk about the hypocritical feminists who complained about clothes one of the guys who worked on the rocket was wearing even though they complain that they can't wear certain clothes without being ridiculed etc.
But there is one problem with the lander right now, its out of fuel, IN SPACE. Well actually its on the comet and by out of fuel I mean its not getting enough sun to let the solar panels get enough power to turn it on and leave it on, so its currently deactivated, so they have to wait for the comet to get close to the sun or a better position etc. There also comes the problem of the comet which we have no control over, The comet could break apart or explode or just get destroyed at any second because that's what comets do. All we can do now is just wait and hope, and if you like to, pray.
Our Second story is all about another space launch, but rather then it being about unmanned drones going to distant comets in the universe, instead NASA has launched a rocket, that was able to orbit earth and come back to the atmosphere in 1 piece, AND not only that, it landed right in the ocean without water damage! This is of course the ORION spacecraft see Fig 3.
Fig 3: The Orion Capsule having been lifted from the water.
So lets go into detail about this mission. First off lets talk about the spacecraft. The Orion is like any spacecraft, with a capsule and a rocket to propel it, See fig 4(that's it in a very basic form, its much more complex then that.) They rocket allows it to get into earths orbit and then from a safe distance it disconnects it from the capsule then allowing the rocket to either become space junk or land on earth (somewhere safe of course, you don't have to worry about a giant rocket destroying your house.) Where it can be collected. The design of the ship is much like that of the Apollo ships, which brought man to the Moon, IN SPACE! Now the same sort of ship design, with many improvements such as; longer life support, more space, better technology, better physical ship design on the ship itself. The ship can house up to four people for space missions and can support 6 months and 21 days in total, (there are a bunch of factors for that one but that's the best we can get.) The space ship was designed to be able to take humans to asteroids near earth and even Mars! The great name of the ship that took man to the moon, will now take another great step for mankind.
Fig 4: The Orion Spacecraft
My third story and final story is cool, its a story about MARS ONE. If you haven't heard about Mars One let me explain it to you. A group of people have been chosen to be sent to you guessed it, Mars. Although the program started in 2011, when the Mars One program was founded, it still exists and is in its very early years, if it was a person, it would be a toddler. They currently have 100 people where they will have 24 of them chosen for the final pick to go live on Mars. You can see a small trailer for it here. They also have several stages and a road map explaining there goal and when they hope to accomplish it and how they hope to accomplish it, which you can find here. How will they do the mission? Well they will start with small steps, sending packages to Mars and setting up a communications relay between Mars and Earth, see Fig 5. They will then start to send bigger packages to Mars around 2020 and at 2026 and 2027 they will send human beings to Mars, see Fig 6 for the housing. They live there off of plants and other things they can create infinitely like solar power. So the big question is: Why send people to Mars? Well if you send people to Mars that means you can do many things. You can stream it live and make money off it, make it a TV show, but also SCIENCE. Being on Mars will allow us to make many scientific discoveries in many fields of science, like medical and geological science, who knows we could even find the cure for cancer! Mars One may achieve great things for human kind, and I just hope that they can manage to succeed.
Fig 5: The communications Relay
Fig 6: The Housing the astronauts will live in.
This concludes the TOP 3 big space news stories of 2014, thanks for reading and have a great day, I'm going back to my Civilization Beyond Earth!
Sources:
http://www.mars-one.com/about-mars-one
http://www.space.com/27740-rosetta-comet-landing-success.html
http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/orion/#.VLzs4SvF-So
The blog is pretty good. There were many details on your topic and you made your theme really clear. Good job!
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