A_Few_Points_About_Space_Travel

Currently the technology we use to get to space is a rocket. It uses chemical propulsion to accelerate, that is, it burns a fuel to produce large amounts of pressure in the opposite direction, allowing the reaction force to push it upwards. The rocket needs to go fast enough to escape earth’s gravity, some 1100 metres per second, but chemical rockets currently in use can travel at about 8000 metres per second, easily enough to reach escape velocity. While enough to get to somewhere like the moon, which would take around 3 days, if we wanted to get to mars it could take around 9 months, and if we wanted to get to the next closest star it would take hundreds of thousands of years. The contributions of what are called the space pioneers, are what makes space travel possible with today’s technology. The most best contributions to Isaac newton’s three laws of motion are some of the most essential to modern space travel, and have led to major developments in how objects interact on Earth and in space. He established the basic laws of force motion and gravitation, which even resulted in the invention of calculus. His invention of the relflection telescope was also a major breakthrough for astronomical observation, and is still used today. Johannes Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, describing the elliptical obits of planets around the sun, are still used widely today to calculate orbits for satellites and planets. His works also provided some of the foundations for Newtons law of universal gravitation. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is often referred to as the father of space travel. He designed many highly technological elements of modern space travel such as space stations, airlocks and multi stage boosters, even before the first jet engine plane was built. His ideas lead to the inception of several currently employed technologies. Hermann Oberth’s research into g forces, fuel to weight ratio, and multi stage boosters contributed significantly to the success of modern space missions Effective communications between Earth and space missions is essential for a successful mission to take place. If anything were to go wrong, contact with Earth is one of the most important lifelines, however in deep space, there are some challenges to overcome. Van allen belts are large pockets of radiation trapped in pockets in the earths magnetosphere. They cause significant interference to electromagnetic waves such as radio and microwaves, which reduces the strength of an incoming or outgoing signal Since the intensity of an electromagnetic wave is inverse to the distance squared, the further away the spacecraft is, the weaker the strength of the signal, reducing it’s effectiveness Shorter wavelength electromagnetic waves carry a higher amount of energy, and therefore lose less intensity over long distances. This makes microwaves more suitable for space communication than radio waves. Velocity and delay is an important factor for deep space travel, because information needs to be received quickly in order to be acted upon. If it was possible to communicate information via light, then information could be transferred over long distances in much shorter time Having humans in space is full of dangers, and with extended space travel these issues will only become more prevalent. Most of the problems associated with space travel can be put into 2 categories, physical and mental. Oxygen is required for us to breath but unfortunately there is none in space at all, this means that it would need to be taken with us, filling up space and weight constraints. Radiation is a constant threat to humans in space, and while small amounts experienced in a 2 or 3 day trip to the moon would be small extended exposure such as experienced during a 9 month trip to mars would be potentially life threatening. Radiation can also cause deadly mutations to viruses, as it alter the structure of DNA Food and water will either have to be manufacture or packed for the entire trip, which, depending on the length could take up tonnes of extra weight With the current velocities we can achieve with our technology, many of the outer planets would not be able to be reached before the astronaut died of old age. When in space the weightlessness experienced reduces the body’s need to use its muscles, leading to the loss of muscle mass, also know as atrophy Isolation and loneliness can be experienced by being away from earth for an extended period of time. It would be even more of a problem on a one man one way mission to mars, such as proposed by the “mars to stay” programme The increased stress of the space environment may reduce the immune system’s ability to fight infectious diseases. All of these problems are most easily fixed by increasing the maximum velocities and fuel efficiency of space craft, which would reduce travel times and also the effects of all of these conditions. Currently space shuttles have a maximum capacity of around 50,000 tonnes. While this may seem like a lot, the amount of equipment required for longer space missions could easily exceed it. Presently the fastest method of space travel that is operational is chemical propulsion. This can only achieve speeds of 8000 metres per second, which is not fast enough for longer distance space travel to be feasible. The massive distances between solar systems and galaxies mean that we wont be able to travel to new places with conventional propulsion systems. The Earth only has a finite amount of fuel on earth, meaning that we are limited in the amount of space missions we can undertake and the distances we can go, until we develop a new fuel source or find an alternate method of propulsion The costs associated with sending missions into orbit are often in the billions of dollars, and to travel further would cost more. There are a lot of emerging and future technologies that are becoming more feasible, to reduce some of the issues with space travel, and make it more efficient. The space elevator uses the idea of a geostationary orbiting satellite, connected to the earth via an incredibly strong tether, that a platform can run along. This would reduce the costs, and volumes of fuel needed to exit the earth’s gravitational field. A hydrogen ramjet uses the concept of a regular ramjet in that it would collect hydrogen from space through a front intake and fuse it to create energy, similar to how the sun does. This technology doesn’t require any fuel to operate, reducing costs and weight. Anti matter refers to matter with completely opposite characteristics to regular matter. For example, rather than atoms being made from orbiting electrons, they are made from orbiting positrons. When anti matter comes into contact with normal matter, There is a large amount of energy released Warp drives refer to a method of travel that morphs the fabric of space and time to create shortcuts to your destination. This type of technology is still only speculative, so its advantages and disadvantaged are unknown. The concept of solar sails revolves around the idea of catching photons of light, which move at high speeds on sails that propel the ship forwards. This method of propulsion requires no fuel, and can reach velocities up to half the speed of light.