The final frontier

By: Josh Leach

            What is the future of space travel?  Well, the age of the space shuttles is over, and NASA’s budget was cut by a billion dollars in 2012.  However, the private sector is picking up where the space program left off.  Space X and Virgin Galactic are both private companies competing for contracts with NASA.  Despite recent failed launches, humans are getting back into space.

            In a few years, astronauts may not be the only ones leaving the atmosphere.  Virgin Galactic’s owner, Richard Branson, has this goal in mind.  Mike Aldridge, a junior at Seckman High School, says, “I definitely want to go to space someday.”  However, the cost may be out of the average person’s price range.  CNN U.S. says, “Virgin has sold more than 700 tickets, each costing more than $250,000, for future flights. Several celebrities have already signed up, including Justin Bieber, Ashton Kutcher, Leonardo DiCaprio and Stephen Hawking.”  The company believes it can significantly reduce the cost of space travel, so regular people can go to space. 

            Some people worry these private corporations are too ambitious.  In light of the fatal crash of SpaceShip Two, significant safety concerns have been raised.  The accident killed co-pilot Michael Tyner Alsbury and severely injured co-pilot Peter Siebold.  According to CNN U.S., “A lock-unlock lever on the doomed Virgin Galactic SpaceShip Two was moved earlier than it should have been, the National Transportation Safety Board said Sunday night.”  The fear is that these companies are rushing past safety procedures and endangering crew members.

            Despite numerous setbacks, space exploration is expanding quickly.  Spaceflight Insider website says, “NASA has not sent astronauts to destinations beyond low-Earth-orbit (LEO) since the end of the Apollo Moonlandings in 1972. With the conclusion of the final lunar mission, Apollo 17, the space agency has only had crews venture a few hundred miles above our home world. NASA is now planning to utilize its new crew-rated spacecraft, Orion, powered aloft by the Space Launch System (SLS) heavy-lift booster to accomplish the goal of sending humans to far more distant destinations.”  Other countries are also starting their own space programs.  After China took its first steps towards reaching the moon, CNN U.S. said, “China launched an experimental spacecraft early Friday that is scheduled to orbit the moon before returning to Earth, a first for the country's ambitious space program and considered a precursor to a planned mission to the moon.  The mission tests technology that will be used in a more ambitious launch, scheduled to take place in 2017, when an unmanned lunar probe will go to the moon, collect soil samples and return home.”  India and Japan have also become more ambitious about their space programs.  Josh Kurosz, a senior, believes, “We must go to space.  Mankind can never stop exploring.”  Space travel may become a commonality, in a few years.

            The technological revolution advances on and makes science fiction more tangible.  The world is still far from Star Trek becoming a reality, but the wheels of progress just keep spinning.  Not even gravity can hold down mankind’s ingenuity.  The sky is no longer the limit.  What does the future hold?