It was a year ago today that NASA successfully landed the Curiosity rover safely on the surface of Mars.
An amazing feat that you can't help think is something we should have done decades ago.
The Soviets landed a probe on Venus in 1966 and sent up another that landed and sent back readings in 1969, the same year that humans were stepping onto the moon but it took another 43 years until we picked up the thread again which is very frustrating because if we had carried on in 1969 just imagine how much closer to a manned visit to Mars or a colony on the moon we would be today.
We have sent probes to all the planets and most of their moons on budgets a fraction of what is spent on 'defence' and we have found out that the inner rocky ones that may have had an outside chance of hosting us in the future are all uninhabitable for humans.
I'm 44 and hoped i would be living on the moon by now or at least past the stage when we are still landing probes on planets to find out about them.
Hopefully we are entering a new 'space age' where we really move on and make up for lost time.
1 comment:
According to John blaha we went to the moon at the expense of all other aspects of space travel. We've spent the last 50 years catching the rest of the needed infrastructure up with the lunar program.
Q
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