Veronika Wild

Image by Pexels from Pixabay Did you know there was a new Space Race in progress? Before we go on to that, I just want to touch on this year’s theme for Space Week which was about “Living in Space.” Living In Space  With over 100 missions either planned or in progress, there's no doubt that dream is coming closer.   Mars Rovers, Venus Probes   and Interstellar observatories are all happening. Here are a some of the highlights: Although NASA planned to have humans on the Moon by 2024, funding cuts have meant some delays, but its Artemis Program is preparing for another lunar orbit mission to lay the groundwork for a sustainable human presence there. Intuitive Machines IM-2 is attempting a second Nova-C lunar landing under NASA’s outsourcing program to deliver payloads to the Moon’s surface. The development of habitation modules, air, water and energy supply systems for the long stay of a human on the Moon continues.  In collaboration with NASA, ICON is developi...

-Image courtesy of NASA per Pixabay  It’s taken me a over a week to reflect on Space Week which ran from October 4 to October 10, but in the cosmic time scale, it's less than the beat of a butterfly's wing, though I will have missed telling you about the recent meteor shower or the two comets which which were visible from earth, but better late than never.  This was going to be a short post to celebrate some of the achievements in space exploration and a brief look at the future, but suddenly it has expanded into several pages just thinking about the ways in which Space Travel impacts our daily lives, that I now have to turn it into two posts with the next one being about future directions and some of the issues which these raise. Let’s start with a brief recap of those important milestones.  History  October 4, marks the date in 1957 that the Russians succeeded in putting Sputnik 1 - the world's first satellite into space. I remember the occasion well, if not the ...