This post looks at space travel in the long-term future, but to look into the future we must first remember the past. The crew of Apollo 11 were setting their sights on being the first ever humans to land on the moon. The mission launched on July 16th1969 and lasted about 8 days. This mission, and Armstrong’s famous quote ‘one small step for man and one giant leap for man-kind’ paved the way for future missions and space travel developments.
It’s now 2019. 50 years from the first manned mission landing on the moon, and how space travel has changed since then. From the development of the International Space Station to the many manned and unmanned missions into space, sending people to the ISS and Rovers to the moon and other planets. But what’s next in the long-term future? After researching this for a bit, I came across a paper dedicated to this topic exactly. Now the idea of the ‘long-term future’ is different for everybody but in this case, I am referring to 50 years from now.
The International Space Station allows for extended stay in Space for humans and plays a crucial role in preparing for human space exploration beyond low Earth orbit (Williams et at, 2011). The design of the ISS is constantly changing and developing to allow the stay of the crew to be extended so maybe in the long-term future there is the possibility for it to become a place where humans can stay for years. The ISS could also be the inspiration for other Space Stations where people can stay, and for not only astronauts, but for civilians too.
I always talk about Humans travelling to, and living on Mars and this idea is depicted in the movies; The Martian and The Space Between Us, but how far away is it? With the focus being on creating a spacecraft for commercial use (Williams et at, 2011), the idea of colonising Mars is a bit far off. Colonising Mars is a long-term future goal because there is still so much that is not understood about Mars and Space. The other issue, and my next point, is space medicine for those extended stays.
All missions and developments for Space travel have been leading up to a common goal; extended stays in space. I’ve talked about the effects of Space travel in past posts so I won’t go into it but to sum up, extended stays can have huge consequences on the human body that are irreversible. For it to be possible for humans to stay in space on the ISS and other space stations and colonise mars, there needs to be something that can stop the changes to the body that can happen while in space. Space medicine can be defined as the area of medical practice that deals with the provision of healthcare in partial and micro-gravitational environments (Williams et at, 2011). There are currently some types of space medicine but there needs to be new developments and better medicines to be able to avoid the effects of space travel. This research is very important for future human space exploration.
So, what are we looking at in Space travel in 50 years? Space Tourism, Colonising other planets and the development of Space medicine. It’s possible that these developments can happen earlier but for now, it’s a long-term future goal.
As always, let me know what you think in the comments below or on Twitter!
Reference List
Williams, D. and Turnock, M. (2011). Human Space Exploration the Next Fifty years. Human Space Exploration, Vol. 13 No. 2, pp.76-81.
YouTube. (2007). Apollo11: Lunar Landing July 20, 1969. 1 June 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_OD2V6fMLQ