hatterson
Registered User
In the past few weeks, a couple big announcements were made in regards to manned space travel.
Since the end of the Apollo program in 1972 our species has been confined to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). We've stayed within a few hundred miles of the surface of the earth for any manned missions.
However, it seems that's going to change in the very near future.
NASA has recently announced they will be exploring a modification of Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) mission parameters to include crew. The scheduled launch of this mission is September 30, 2018 and would involve a 10 day stay in high-lunar orbit as part of preparation for a 2021 mission that would have a manned crew visit a captured asteroid at a stable point near the moon.
SpaceX also jumped onto the boat, with the company announcing plans for a flight around the moon in "late" 2018. SpaceX's flight is a little different being a true space tourism flight. They were approached by two as yet unnamed private citizens wanting to do the flight. The plan for this would be a free return trajectory from the moon with no professional astronauts accompanying the tourists. For those who don't know, a free return trajectory is basically a long loop that complete a good chunk of the way around the moon but doesn't actually enter orbit.
If SpaceX's flight goes through and works, it would be the first space tourism flight leaving LEO and the two individuals would join a very small group of non-astronauts who have been to space (current list is 7 names long). Depending on the timing and how NASA's plans go, it may also be the first time we've left LEO in over 45 years.
Either way, it's an exciting time for space exploration as we, as a species, seem to be willing to go for big things again.
Since the end of the Apollo program in 1972 our species has been confined to Low Earth Orbit (LEO). We've stayed within a few hundred miles of the surface of the earth for any manned missions.
However, it seems that's going to change in the very near future.
NASA has recently announced they will be exploring a modification of Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1) mission parameters to include crew. The scheduled launch of this mission is September 30, 2018 and would involve a 10 day stay in high-lunar orbit as part of preparation for a 2021 mission that would have a manned crew visit a captured asteroid at a stable point near the moon.
SpaceX also jumped onto the boat, with the company announcing plans for a flight around the moon in "late" 2018. SpaceX's flight is a little different being a true space tourism flight. They were approached by two as yet unnamed private citizens wanting to do the flight. The plan for this would be a free return trajectory from the moon with no professional astronauts accompanying the tourists. For those who don't know, a free return trajectory is basically a long loop that complete a good chunk of the way around the moon but doesn't actually enter orbit.
If SpaceX's flight goes through and works, it would be the first space tourism flight leaving LEO and the two individuals would join a very small group of non-astronauts who have been to space (current list is 7 names long). Depending on the timing and how NASA's plans go, it may also be the first time we've left LEO in over 45 years.
Either way, it's an exciting time for space exploration as we, as a species, seem to be willing to go for big things again.
