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The Hubble Space Telescope
The Future of Space Travel
In the future, will space travel become as common as the annual family vacation to Disney World?
We've already had several space tourists. The first space tourist in history was Dennis Tito, a multimillionaire who had a dream of going to space and was financially able to make that dream come true. Tito doesn't like being called a space tourist. He prefers to be called an "independent researcher" since he did perform several experiments while on his trip, er, mission.
Dennis Tito made an arrangement with the space tourism company Space Adventures, Ltd., and joined Soyuz TM-32 on April 28, 2001. It was reported that Tito paid $20 million to go on the "mission," but some of his friends say that it was a mere $12 million.
Mark Shuttleworth was the second space tourist to pay for a trip to space. Shuttleworth, another multimillionaire (surprise, surprise) is reported to have paid $20 million for his 2002 space adventure as well. Shuttleworth's space flight was also arranged by Space Adventures, Ltd. He went to space aboard the Russian Soyuz TM-34 mission.
The third space tourist was Gregory Olsen in 2005. Olsen trained as a scientist, and his company produces specialty high-sensitivity cameras. Olsen used his time on the ISS to conduct a number of experiments mostly to test his company's products.
In September 2006, Anousheh Ansari, an Iranian American, went to space aboard Soyuz TMA-9 and became the fourth space tourist. Ms. Ansari prefers to be called a spaceflight participant.
Then on April 7, 2007, Charles Simonyi, an American billionaire of Hungarian descent, became the fifth space tourist when he flew about the Soyuz TMA-10.
Is there a future for the space flight industry? My guess is yes! There have already been five. Prices will decrease as space flight becomes more common, and someday a space vacation will be a viable option.
See Also:
Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors Theme Page
Buying a Telescope
The Planet Mercury
The planet Mercury is the smallest planet in our solar system, and the one that is closest to the sun. This proximity to the sun has made it difficult to study the planet. The closest look that we have ever had was in 1974 and 1975 when the unmanned Mariner 10 was sent to map the surface of Mercury. Only about 40% to 45% of the surface was actually mapped.
Mercury resembles our moon in appearance as it is heavily cratered. There is an atmosphere of sorts on Mercury but not one that would sustain life as we know it. The atmosphere is very unstable and is made up of hydrogen, helium, oxygen, sodium, calcium and potassium.
Records of studies made of Mercury date back to 300 BC. The name "Mercury" was given to the planet by the Romans after the god Mercurius. Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese cultures refer to Mercury as the water star based on the Five Elements. Other cultures have called the planet by other names. The Babylonians, for example, called the planet Nabu or Nebu after the messenger to the Gods in their mythology.
The temperature on Mercury varies. The average temperature is 179° C, but the extremes are a low of -183 °C to a high of 427° C. Sunlight on Mercury is six and a half times stronger than it is on Earth.
There is evidence that water does exist on Mercury despite the extreme temperature variations. The bottoms of some of the deepest craters near the poles are never exposed to direct sunlight. Temperatures in these areas remain far lower than the global average, so it is possible for ice to exist. |
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More articles:
Saturn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Astronomers find the sun's long-lost twin - Space.com- msnbc.com
Saturn - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hubble Finds 67 New Gravitationally Lensed Galaxies
On Pluto’s Demotion
Ancient Astronomical Calendars
Our Sun
There is nothing remarkable about our sun in the scheme of things. It is very similar to millions of other stars (and our sun is a star) in the universe. You might even call our sun an "average" star.
The energy source for our sun is nuclear fusion. If the total energy output of the sun for just one second could be captured, it would provide the United States with enough energy at the current level of usage for nine million years.
There is a hard core at the center of the sun. The core is so dense and the sun is so large that energy released in the center of the sun takes 50 million years to reach the surface. That means that if the sun suddenly stopped producing any energy at all at the core today, it would be another 50 million years before we noticed it here on earth.
Our sun has been producing radiant and thermal energy for the last four or five billion years. There is enough hydrogen for it to continue producing energy for at least another hundred billion years. In about 10-20 billion years, the sun will begin to expand. It will engulf the closest planets (including Earth), and then it will be a giant red star. In another few billion years after that, our sun will become what is known as a dwarf star.
Most people think of the sun as this large (huge), constant featureless fireball in the sky. The large part is right, but the constant (or steady) and the featureless parts are all wrong. Sunspots are a feature of the sun that was first noted by Theophrastus about 325 BC. A moderate-size sunspot is about the size of Earth. Sunspots come and go over a period of days or weeks.
Related Topics: The Planet Venus,
Astronomy28, The Future of Space Travel
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