First, there was the excitement of the space age, with our initial space explorations, culminating with our most visible achievement so far: sending a man to the moon. The next couple decades saw a decreasing public interest in space exploration. However, the last few years have brought renewed hope for a second coming of the space age.
First, the big news of the week is that November 20th marked the 10th anniversary of the International Space Station, the first long-term international space cooperation.
The resurgence in interest of space exploration has been mostly lead by private interests (as opposed to the first wave which was lead by public companies. The new private space race is spurred by the young but growing market for space tourism, but also for the more long-term, and potentially vastly lucrative resource mining business.
The burgeoning tourism demand is already having a large impact on the demand for rocket planes. Private space flight is being encouraged through various competitions such as the Google Lunar X Prize as well as NASA’s recent embracing of private space firms. Private groups are already lining up to tackle the Google’ Lunar Challenge.
The appearance of lawyers specialized in space law is worrying, but lends further credence to the re-emergence of space exploration.
This past year saw the Internet’s reach finally extend to space through the hard work of Vint Cerf (commonly known as the father of the Internet). Vint has been working on the interplanetary network protocol for last few years. This protocol will likely be the base communication model for all interplanetary communication for generations to come. After years of planning, NASA turned to field trials in October, and this past week, they announced the successful tests of the first “Deep Space Internet”. This will probably one day be considered a landmark moment in the history of space exploration.
This resurgence in interest in space is not solely limited to private groups. Growing interest from new emerging space powers (such as India, China and Japan) is also driving space exploration, and applying pressure on conventional space leaders (such as the US) to do more. The key fact remains, the dawn of a new space age is upon us, and it feels like the real deal this time.
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