The Promising Future of Space Exploration

Emiliano Flores
After a decade of incredible discoveries and achievements in space exploration, the Universe is back in fashion. We can look back at the 2010s as a decade of exploration of new worlds and new frontiers. A decade when missions to Mars, and interstellar travel, were openly discussed by both NASA and private space companies. Space has caught the attention and imagination of the public in a way not seen since the Apollo mission. The more we learn about space, the more we realize how much we have left to discover.

Landed “Curiosity Rover” in Mars

In 2012, NASA landed the Curiosity Rover in Mars’s Gale Crater, making it most technologically complex rover ever created. It is equipped with photographic instruments that have captured incredible images of this lonely planet and it is able to take rock and dust samples. The rover has found evidence of organic matter that could mean the planet once supported microbial life. The rover has a twitter account in which the public is able to see what it is up to, and the images it has captured.

@MarsCuriosity

Completed the International Space Station

The international space station was fully completed in 2011, and has allowed astronauts to maintain continuous presence in space throughout the decade. The construction of this space ship is is arguably the greatest scientific achievement of the century. It is the result of the work of many international teams working together overtime. The station is a venue for scientific research from experimental cancer drugs to understanding dark matter.

10 years, and more than 30 missions to assemble
The Hubble space telescope can capture deep field images beyond our solar system. In 2012, It was able to create an image by combining 1,000 exposures over a period of 10 years. The image is only a small patch of the universe, but it contains 5,500 galaxies. This is just one 30 millionth of the whole sky, so any direction the telescope is pointed, there is an unimaginable number of galaxies, planets, stars and possibly life. This gives us an idea of how much more is out there, and how much we have left to discover.
Hubble Space Telescope
Everywhere in the universe we look, there are vast discoveries to be found

First Photograph of a Black Hole

A large team of astronomers achieved a task that was thought to be impossible: Capture an image of a black whole in deep space. This was thought to be impossible because black holes absorb anything that comes their way, including light. Taking this iconic image required the use of radio telescopes from different places around the world, including Hawaii and Antartica.

An image of a black hole was thought to be impossible to capture.
Starman
In 2018, the Falcon Heavy was launched by SpaceX. The spaceship contained a special traveler, Starman. Elon Musk’s Tesla vehicle was released into space with a mannequin of an astronaut on the driver seat. A camera broadcasted the vehicle orbiting the earth until the battery died. Starman has been in space for over a year and It has been predicted that it wil be orbiting Mars by March 2020. I will always linger in space until it smashes into Venus or Earth within the next few million years.

Reusable Rockets by SpaceX

Space X was able to develop the first rocket to be able to launch into space and safely land back in earth. This dramatically reduces the cost of every launch, eliminating the need to constantly building new rockets, and making space travel more affordable.

Voyager 1 Reaches Interstellar Space

In the late 70s, NASA scientists launched the Voyager 1 space probe into deep space. For decades, the voyager traveled through our solar system gathering data about near planets. In 2012, the probe officially left our solar system and entered interstellar space, where it is no longer within reach of the Sun’s solar wind. It is the first ever human made object to leave our galaxy, and it is expected to continue its mission until 2025.

The first human object to travel beyond our solar system.
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