The International Space Station is a habitable man-made satellite in a low orbit above the Earth. It is the largest man-made body in orbit and can be seen with the naked eye. It is made of pressurized modules, external trusses, solar arrays and other components. The first components were launched in 1998 aboard Russian Proton and Soyuz rockets and United States Space Shuttles.
On March 2, 2017, China carried out the first launch of a new rocket called the Kaituozhe-2 (KT-2) from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center (JSLC). The JSLC was established in 1958 and was China's first launch complex. It is located in the Gobi Desert and is about one thousand miles from Beijing.
My last three posts were about plans for setting up a permanent base on the Moon. I mentioned that NASA is more focused on a major mission to Mars than going back to the Moon. Before he left office, President Obama made the declaration that the Moon is not a "planned" destination for U.S. astronauts.
Part Three of Three Parts: (Please read Part One and Part Two first)
Part Two of Three Parts: (Please read Part One first)
Part One of Three Parts:
I have mentioned thermionic power generators that use plutonium-238 to provide power for space probes in past posts. Recently there have been some problems with obtaining sufficient Pu-238 for NASA deep space missions. Nuclear propulsion systems for large spacecraft have also been proposed for decades. With the recent expansion of private space industry, interest in nuclear propulsion has increased.
I have posted before about the problem with all the space junk in orbit around the Earth. It is estimated that there are over a hundred million pieces of space junk including old satellites, rocket boosters, fragments of rockets, and fragments of metal and paint. About twenty thousand pieces are more than four inches in diameter.
Last year, I blogged about Moon Express, the first private space company to be licensed for travel beyond Earth orbit by the U.S. government. Moon Express plans a lunar mission in late 2017. Recent developments have certainly been positive for ME.
Throughout the more than a century of observation through telescopes and the visits of orbiters and landers, Mars has fascinated the human race. Much smaller than the Earth, the surface area is about equivalent to the land area on Earth.
