Near future

[_Simon_]

I was born in 1983. Lets say that I live to be 80 years old (2063). If we rule out the possibility of a "Deep Impact" scenario or aliens contacting us, what would most likley be the most interesting thing in space exploration during my life? Will I live to see the landing on mars or am I stuck with the old pictures from the -60s and -70s? Any thoughts?

Cheers!

 

[Space_Goose]

Well, unless I am mistaken, I think China has the goal of landing a human on mars by 2030. so you should live to see that. You will probably also live to see another moon landing and maybe at least the start of a permanent outpost on the moon. If interest in space exploration had not weakened after the Apollo program, we might possibly already be on Mars as we speak.

One thing mine and your generation has in our favor is that there is kind of a new space race starting up between the USA and China. Still I would guess that the honor of landing the first human on Mars will most likely belong to China. Also, schedualed to arrive in 2015 is the first ever prob to explore pluto. I am not sure if it is supposed to land on Pluto or just orbit it but I do know that it is on its way now. There are also some plans on sending a landing prob to Europa which will drill a hole through the ice and drop down a small submariene to explore the oceans believed to exist under the ice. So there could potentially be some pretty cool discoveries and events happening in our life time

 

[_Simon_]

So I guess Russia is not an option when it comes to landing on Mars? Or ESA for that matter.

 

[Space_Goose]

I think Russia is assisting China with their space program but to what extent I can not say. The only two nations with goals to land on Mars at the moment are the USA and China as far as I know. As they say, you have to craw before you walk and I think ESA has some catch up to do but ESA still might make it in our lifetime, who knows. All this could end up happening faster than expected because of the USA and China space race. Especually on Chinas end, if it looks like America might be getting close, national pride might push the Chinese into starting their Mars Mission sooner. China plans on Going to the Moon first though and the USA also plans on returning to the Moon before it goes to Mars. I think America wants to set up kind of a training center on the moon to help train astronauts for the trip to Mars. If something goes wrong on the moon, they have transport or supplies there in a few days compared to the 6 months or longer for Mars depending on where Mars is in its orbit. I think the US wants to use the moon as a way to iron out all the kinqs so to speak before they try for Mars. China probably wants to do the same. China is alslo working on its own Space Station and I think is very close to launching one of the first sections of its space station if it hasn't already. This space race will probably produce the same exiting results that the last one did

But the bottom line is, at the moment, the only two contenders to land on Mars are America and China.

 

[weeman]

I was born in 1983. Lets say that I live to be 80 years old (2063). If we rule out the possibility of a "Deep Impact" scenario or aliens contacting us, what would most likley be the most interesting thing in space exploration during my life? Will I live to see the landing on mars or am I stuck with the old pictures from the -60s and -70s? Any thoughts?

Cheers!

You'll most likely see a Mars landing. I've heard rumors of NASA heading back to the moon by 2020.

 

[kelvinzero]

I was born in 1983. Lets say that I live to be 80 years old (2063). If we rule out the possibility of a "Deep Impact" scenario or aliens contacting us, what would most likley be the most interesting thing in space exploration during my life? Will I live to see the landing on mars or am I stuck with the old pictures from the -60s and -70s? Any thoughts?

Cheers!

I hope to see a permanent base on the moon actually exploiting lunar materials such as lunar water, oxygen, metals and glass for construction and life support. Also the beginnings of lunar tourism.