The New Age of Space Race

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, was founded on July 29, 1958, just nine months after the first man-made satellite Sputnik 1 was launched on October 4, 1957, by the Soviet Union.

On July 16, 1969, the Apollo 11 mission was sent to the moon and mission commander Neil Armstrong and pilot Buzz Aldrin became the first two persons to land on the moon on July 20.

On July 29, 2018, NASA completed sixty years and its focus on sending people to space still remains the same.

To prove it, NASA’s Mars Mission has announced a reward of $1 million inviting the public to present their ideas on how to convert carbon dioxide into glucose on the red planet. The announcement is made with the objective to enable astronauts to visit the planet with fewer equipment and materials and ultimately to help humans to survive and thrive on Mars.

The federal government space agency is not the sole organization trying to get humans on space. Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic and Virgin Orbit are also working on ideas to get people to travel to and settle on the red planet and SpaceX founder Elon Musk says that his aerospace manufacturer and space transportation services startup could start a mission to the planet as early as 2022.

The race to space is so intense that it is viewed as the United States is on the verge of having an autonomous commercial space market that is no longer regulated by the federal government.

As per the experts, advancement in technology is enabling cash-rich companies to build their own satellites and compete against NASA and there will be more and more initiatives in the future and satellites will get smaller and people can make their own satellites.

Private companies have already started showing considerable growth and promising results when it comes to space exploration bettering even NASA.

As more private players have started entering the space race, NASA can get help and even outsource operations to these new entities.

However, private players need to have a strong reason to consider extremely audacious and expensive mission such as space explorations because unlike government agencies, they have limited resources and political motivation and they need to see a return on investment.

Also, it makes little sense to make blueprints for colonizing Mars (or other planets) instead of searching for ways how to reduce greenhouse gases, pollution, combat climate change and make our planet way more livable and sustainable. After all, the Earth won’t be as bad as Mars even after we have made our mother planet too polluted and hot for humans.

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