By Jack Brennan
About two weeks ago, Space X landed its drone rocket, the Falcon 9, on a tiny remote platform in the Atlantic Ocean for the first time. This may not seem like huge news, but it is the first step towards the future of space travel: we are on the verge of commercialized space travel.
Before we can break down the importance of this landing, it is important to understand how NASA launched its rockets out of the atmosphere. When rockets leave Earth’s atmosphere, they break into smaller pieces and burn up in the atmosphere.
This is similar to building the most advanced $200 million house, sleeping in it once and then burning it to the ground. The Falcon 9 rocket, on the other hand, can be used multiple times in a row, which will drastically decrease the amount of money spent on resources and remaking rockets.
So why land it on a floating football field in the middle of the ocean instead of solid ground? To land it on flat ground would cost even more money because it would require more fuel to get the rocket back over land. The rocket launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida and its angle of trajectory is projected to touch back down over the Atlantic Ocean. Sending it back to Florida would waste even more fuel because the rocket would have to make a U-turn to get back. Therefore, the rocket will land where its trajectory takes it, as this is easier and cheaper.
This is not the only space news to come out in the past couple of months. Dr. Scott Kelly recently returned from his year onboard the International Space Station for the longest amount of time a human has ever spent in space. Kelly has an identical twin who stayed on Earth while he was in space, giving NASA the ability to compare the medical and biological ways that space affected Kelly’s body. NASA scientists are mainly aiming to use this knowledge to assess how long-term trips to Mars will affect the body.
NASA’s space program is underfunded, and this is the reason we must begin to rely on the commercialization of space travel.
What is the end game? Why pour hundreds of millions of dollars into rockets and space exploration? It is because space is the place we must explore next. Humans have an inherent need to explore.
Neanderthals were distinctly different from Homo sapiens, not because of their intelligence, but because their species was hindered by a lack of the need to explore. Evidence suggests that they made boats and explored most of Northern Europe all the way to the coast of modern day England. They found no reason to keep going and explore past that, but Homo sapiens had an innate need to go further than before. Our ancestors took larger and larger risks, eventually taking boats hundreds of miles across the ocean for a new life and eternal glory. Our need to explore is in our blood, and it is the reason we are still alive on this planet and Neanderthals are not. As a species, we cannot stop exploring now.
These two pieces of space news may seem rather small in comparison to a headline that reads “Life Discovered on Mars,” but both of these experiments are major steps towards the future of space exploration.
Many years from now, we may read about the first man landing on Mars. The only way this can happen is if we keep testing and pushing the limits of space travel. One day we will have these experiments to thank for our trip to Mars. Elon Musk once said, “I would like to die on Mars, just not on impact.” We must perfect all of these aspects of space travel if the human race wants to become a multi-planet species.
