The Student Room Group

Space Travel - Old News?

With the draw down of NASA in the last couple of years and the lack of public ever since the 70's, has space exploration taken a back seat for the foreseeable future or is this only a temporary blip.

There are many issues to consider. including the fact that one day Earth will cease to exist as we know it and with the recent discovery of historical evidence that water once existed on Mars.

What are your feelings on this?
There is no money in space and until someone finds a way to make it profitable (or we go to war with aliens) i have a feeling humans will stay earth bound.
Reply 2
i think we should leave other planets alone... we would only **** them up like this one
Reply 3
I think in our lifetimes we'll witness a human on Mars.
Reply 4
I don't think it's old news but countries have a lot of their own **** to sort out economy wise before they go splashing billions on more space programs. I mean we had the Mars rover which has been really good and it seems the enthusiasm for a manned mission to Mars is rising.

However saying that I think it's going to need private companies who believe they can make money from space exploration, via tourism (especially once its cheap enough to cost a few thousand for the passengers) and mineral resources.

I suppose one issue is that in some ways the distance of any decent exploration makes it infeasible, it's a couple of years to get to Mars, let alone trying to send people to the gas giants moons. I think the development of much faster propulsion systems would raise the level of interest greatly.
Reply 5
Virgin Galactic is scheduled (in very faint pencil) to go live by the end of this year.

Within 18 months of operation they're planning on doubling the number of humans of who've been to space (currently about 500).


Interplanetary travel? The desire is there, the problem is distance.
Reply 6
There is obviously the issue of our lack of technology for such ventures at the moment, and with the current economic situation in the world, I think it will be a while before we see any worthwhile ventures into getting humans onto other planets, but I don't think it will be too far in the future.

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