Space Travel; the Reality and the Dream

From the dawn of civilization, mankind has looked toward the stars and wondered. The idea of travel beyond one’s own limited boundary is a concept as old as, well to use an old cliché, as old as time itself. Have you not thought yourself a time or two or many, what it would be like to travel through space? I personally believe that almost everyone on the planet has had this thought at least one. And the dream will remain, as long as mankind can produce rational thought.

With the concept of space travel being perpetuated throughout literature and more recently TV and movies, what separates the dream from reality? A lot of brain power, hard work and money. Yes, lots of money. And unless one can determine how to spirit oneself through space by thought processes alone, the “how to” of space travel had to be worked out by someone. Do you think you could have done this?

When trying to determine how to design and build a spacecraft, many factors have to be understood. For instance how big should the craft be, how heavy can it be, how fast it will have to go and how much fuel will be needed. To get some idea of answers to these questions, you need a theory of how objects move in space and how to make the calculations. Amazingly most of the foundation of space flight theory was derived by three brilliant men over a period of nearly three centuries - from 1600 to 1900.

A German mathematician, Johannes Kepler, in 1609, figured out the equations for orbiting planets & satellites. In particular, he determined that the planets move in ellipses (flattened circles) rather than true circles. These equations later became known as Kepler’s laws of planetary motion. In 1687, Sir Isaac Newton, wrote what is probably, considered by most, the single greatest intellectual achievement of all time (Just a tad greater than Albert Einstein’s great achievements). In a single book he established the basic laws of force (remember F=ma from those tough Physics days?), motion, and gravitation and invented a new branch of mathematics in the process (calculus). He did all this to show how the force of gravity is the underlying reason why a planet’s orbit will follow Kepler’s laws.

A Russian schoolteacher, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, was the first to figure out all the basic equations for rocketry - in 1903 (just as the Wright brothers were getting off the ground)! And this was done without ever launching a single rocket himself. From his very broad and extensive reading, including Jules Verne’s "From the Earth to the Moon", he concluded that space travel was a possibility, that it was in fact man’s destiny, and that rockets would be the way to pull it off. I guess the concept of Warp speed starships hadn’t crossed his mind!

He anticipated and solved many of the problems that were yet to come up for rocket powered space travel and drew up several basic rocket designs. He also determined that liquid fuel would be needed to power these rockets to space, and that the rockets would need to be built in stages (he called them "rocket trains"). He concluded that oxygen and hydrogen would be the most powerful fuels to use and predicted how, 65 years later, the Saturn V rocket would operate for the first landing of men on the moon.

So as space flight theory got its foundation, other visionaries such as Robert Goddard, Wernher Von Braun and Hermann Oberth set the wheels in motion for the designing, building and launching of spacecraft as we know them today. The 20th century has brought about amazing advancements in the development of rockets and space flight. More on the history of rockets can be found in the menu to the left. With the coming of the jet age and later the organization of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), our small planet forever changed.

Rockets and spacecraft became everyday concepts that will constantly remain with us. Here is one great place to keep up on events and news of the day about space travel. As I discover more sites, I will add them to my useful links page at the left. So keep coming back to this site to check for the latest news.

Will there be space travel from star to star in the near future? No, that kind of ability is many years and quite possibly a century or two away. But we can always dream and build and challenge our way in that direction. Outer Space (put link to tier 3 page here), for many of us, is only a thought process or a Hollywood movie away. As long as we can think and dream and enjoy, the vision will remain alive.

And as we begin the 21st century, we enter a new arena of space travel. That of commercial space flight enterprise. The era of government control and big budge efforts, where only a select few can fly into space, is coming to an end. Private companies are throwing their hats into the ring to design and manufacture smaller and cheaper spaceships that can take you and I, the common man, on a sub orbital or even orbital flight for a fraction of the cost of governmental control. Stay tuned to web pages dedicated to the “Commercial Space Flight Industry”.

To help keep the dream alive, there is a lot of amazing information and other space and rocket related merchandise at amazon.com . And I can’t believe some of the projects that can keep your imagination soaring for hours or days, available here .

Bookmark this site and come back often. And feel free to sign up for my free ezine, “Intrepid Journey” in the form below. This will be a month to month continuation of what is happening in the world of space travel & rockets. Cruise my site and enjoy. Can’t find something you would like to know about? Hit my contact me (put link to contact me page here) page in the menu at the left and let me know.