“You can never quench your thirst for exploration of man” Seneca said two thousand years ago, with his sense of infinity that conflicted with the Pillars of Hercules, when in fact someone had perhaps already crossed the Atlantic on a raft papyrus and perhaps someone else had already won the Pacific on a pirogue, both guided only by faith in the stars. Companies that still flank without dwarfing that of the first man in orbit just 64 years ago.
Exploration and stars, unquenchable thirst and unquestionable faith have again set in motion an impressive race to space despite the difficult international economic situation and the lack of a powerful motive which was the standoff of the Cold War ballistic. Or, in fact, it is these difficulties to trigger within us the desire to remove the boundaries between known and unknown. And maybe even the consideration, probably overlooked by Seneca, that every dollar invested in space it makes at least three, sometimes even ten.
PROBES
Certainly, in any case, he did not think the money the European team of Matt Taylor, the English astrophysicist who never remembers where he parks the car, which last year completed the mission defined by the Times Company ‘most impressive of the century, including the twentieth century. ” After 10 years and 1.4 billion kilometers of travel, the Rosetta spacecraft and lander Philae have hit the comet 67P distant from the earth, at that time, 550 million km: how to make the basket at Madison in New York by a pulling ‘ car that runs around the Palottomatica. A result of “visionary”, because these were to be scientists in the eighties and nineties have started drawing paths between the planets of the solar system knowing they will not have a second or a millimeter margin of error. The enthusiasm and pride to those images and data transmitted from the robot “accometato” plagued every corner of the Earth thanks to the arrival of new answers to the eternal questions: where are we going? Where did we come from? From orbit
“low” to 400 km altitude (the one where the hurtling space station inhabited by our Parmitano and Cristoforetti) to the Moon, Mars to the asteroid belt near Jupiter, the comet 67P achieved precisely by Rosetta to the planet K458D, alleged Earth’s sister, over there at 1,400 light years. The space race from a few years to play on several fronts and always new players.
“In the United States, Russia and Europe, with Italy at the forefront – says Paul D’Angelo, historical space – have meanwhile added, in order, China and India. And then there are the private, especially Americans, lured by prospects also not remote in time and technology, business is in commercial space flight from Earth in a low orbit is from the Earth to the Earth, with ultraridotti time than the present . But I would not doubt in identifying the goal at the most fascinating and objectively as possible. And ‘Mars, how would he respond each astronaut. With the Moon reached again by the man who would rather be the goal of taikonauts Chinese and perhaps some private aided by NASA. “
THE PLANETS
Yeah, it’s 2030 ol 2040 changes little, the red planet is around the corner: between 2018 and 2020 the European ExoMars lander mission, the first is called Stefanelli, just to reiterate the role of the Italian Space, dig two meters below the red soil for signs of water. Shortly after years, starting from 2024, other useful information for the trip are expected from the US mission never even imagined by Verne or Bradbury: capturing asteroids between Mars and Jupiter and tow them near the Moon to allow the astronauts to study them. Meanwhile the Indians have sent other probes (very very low cost but effective) as the Mangalyann to Mars, as well as the Chinese have meanwhile reinforced their space station Tiangong 1, or “Heavenly Palace” although, at the time, just over a studio compared to the international station ISS whose life has recently been extended at least until 2024.
Yes, serve colossal resources for these explorations, but are also colossal returns thanks to advances in science with business spatial advances in leaps dramatically longer and faster than any other type of insights and terrestrial experiments. Next leap, then, to Mars: the rest is already a meticulous diary of life of humans in those lands reddened, just read – impassioning a lot – the recent Man of Mars Andy Weir (early films with Matt Damon) who has little or nothing of science fiction: every line of this novel that combines Gravity (here the compelling review of Samantha Cristoforetti) Robinson Crusoe was approved by top scientists.
INTERVIEW WITH PAUL NESPOLI
Frank De Winne, European Space Agency, last week, when it was presented the new mission of astronaut Paolo Nespoli, was peremptory in saying that on the Moon and Mars will also Italian astronauts.
“Maybe I will not be – he smiled that Nespoli will fly into space in 2017 to 60 years by one month – but when I hear of a twin planet of Earth to” only “1400 years light I get excited like everyone and I hope that many young people already think how to travel faster. History is full of business impossible because someone did not know who they were. Certain spatial distances, I know and understand it, can seem unbridgeable if “calculated” with current technology, but you just remember the progress of science in recent years to be optimistic and, above all, confident that man will always be the main driver the ability to dream and not this or that fuel yet to be invented. “
“I will address this new mission and I am sure that in the end I find myself once again to decide who will do something great,” said the astronaut, who in 2017 will be on the Space Station in the third long-term mission of the Italian Space Agency (ASI) . “And ‘no doubt the result of efforts in recent years have led Italy to accumulate qualifications and skills. ISS also will always continue to repeat the boys not to ask limits: with commitment and perseverance will get you everywhere, even on Mars. “
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