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Living in Space

Wouldn't it be nice to live in space ? One day we might be able to find out, may be not in my generation, but maybe the next, who knows. Already we have a select few people who have managed to live the dream as they have lived onboard one of the following Russian space station 'Mir', American 'Skylab' or led 'International Space Station'. One of the things that we will need to create before long term living in space is achieved is the area of gravity. Astro/Cosmonauts live in zero gravity, they floats around like fish do in water.

Skylab was an American short-term project that enabled the NASA to carry out experiments on human physiology and see if we could survive in space. The results were encouraging. It was plagued by problems from the outset when a meteor shield was deployed earlier than it should've been. It was decided to continue with it before bringing it back down to Earth, burning much of it up in the Earths atmosphere.

Mir was the Russian equivalent of the Skylab project. It was launched nearly 7 years after Skylab in the middle of the eighties. It was only meant to be up there for a set amount of time but stayed longer than for what was originally planned. One man had the unenviable position of staying onboard whilst the revolution from Communism to Democracy was taking place in Russia. Helen Sharman is the first Briton to have visited the station which since then, Dr. Michael Foale has done so.

Scientists carried out an experiment some many months ago when they built a domed world in a desert miles away from any civilisation. Their experiment was to see if people could cope in the same sort of conditions on another world. They had carefully selected the people using all manor of tests. However, the project failed, due in part to the peoples personalities. They soon got bored with one another causing the social cohesion to break down. If we are going to have people living alone in far off places then these situations would have to be resolved.

At present we can get to the Moon in a day and a halfs travelling, which is equivalent to a journey from London, England to Auckland, New Zealand and half way back. We would be able to amuse ourselves on the journey but to visit Mars would take over six months one way. The spaceship would have to be very large in order to have enough fuel to get to the planet and back in time. The planet contains ice at the north and south poles which could be broken up and used to support us whilst we are there. The first planned mission to Mars is being thought out as we speak but its start date has not yet been set. The participants to the project is the United States then France and Russia. China might join the project along with Japan. It would be surprising if the British government were to join the project given its reluctance in the past to do space related work. In Space unlike on Earth, you wouldn't be able to just open the door and drive home. During the flight, would the occupants be conscious or unconscious. In the first set of journeys, they would be conscious so that they would be able to react quicker. It would be highly dangerous if we put people into space and not have a human in control.

The planet we get to will probably be unsuitable straight off. We might need a little converting to make it suitable for us to live on like we do on earth. The important thing would be that the planet has an atmospher, one in which we can either breathe or convert. Converting Venus is a no-go because the planet is too violent and hot. Mars is in a different situation, it has an atmosphere. It just needs converting if we are not going to be restricted to living in dome like worlds. The first thing would be to send carbon-dioxide converters to the planet to make it breatheable. The ice at the poles would be broken up rather than transporting water from Earth. It would be an immense and costly job. It would need to be looked at careful as the resources on Earth would not be able to cope with the sheer number of people on the Earth.

Why settle for the Moon or Mars, why not venture deep into space, to another world or even galaxy. The nearest galaxy is Andromeda and getting there would be near to impossible if it can be done. To give you some idea of how far away the nearest star is. Imagine the sun is shrunk to the size of a pinhead. The nearest star would be four miles away in comparison. No planet has yet been discovered around Alpha Centauri so it would be pointless to visit it. If we were able to visit another star where would we go ? We have not yet found a sun that contains a rocky planet for us to survive on. Since the gas giant that circles the star '51 Peg' was discovered, we have found many gaseous planets. Our technology has not yet been able to find rocky planets. There is a theory going round that rocky planets orbit closer to their star than the gaseous ones. I do not sign up to this theory as it is based on our solar system which is just one. When you look at the planets that have been found, you will see that they orbit at different distances to their stars. There are some planets that zoom round their planets in a week, sometime much much longer. We can determine which stars have giant gaseous planets by looking at our Sun. When Jupiter orbits the Sun, it pulls the star off centre which is what astronomers look for when looking out for planets, those that are pulled off their centre. In our solar system, we have nine planets, five ( Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Pluto ) are rocky and the rest ( Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Uranus ) gaseous. If that theory held, Pluto would be much nearer to Earth than it is now. There is also the matter of the Kuiper Belt, an area which surrounds our star at the farthest reaches of our solar system containing asteroids. It is believed up until Charon, Plutos' moon that Pluto was not a planet but an asteroid taking into account its size and its erratic orbit. There are times during its orbit that brings the planet in closer than Uranus. Enter your thoughts about journeying into space below and comment on other peoples view without being offensive. Do you think we will colonize the planet.

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Comments Pages 1

LOLApril 21, 2009, 3:10 pm
URANUS IS SO FUNNY HA HA HA ...............!
alfie blackSeptember 10, 2008, 6:59 pm
it wood de good to life on the moon
jackNovember 11, 2007, 12:06 am
I think that we will live in space but it will take a wile. with global warming. the people that live within 2-3miles of the cost will die or have to be evacuated that would be about 4.5million people. so we might need to bring people into space to live. another thing is human nature we want to explore thats in our nature as humans.
aminOctober 24, 2007, 2:31 am
pluto is not a planet anymore;it was changedto UB313
NICK PEAKEApril 4, 2007, 2:25 pm
lets stay on earth....
AaronMarch 27, 2007, 8:26 pm
I LOVE SPACE!!!!!
jenna collin
why do peopl have to waste so much money to let a couple of people travel to space and explore when we haven't even explored our own planet. The money spent on space expeditions should be used instead to feed the poor. Or to help find cures for diseases or to help stop pollution. Why do we waste money on something many of us will never experience.
Kevin
On the the theory about the "alien attack", I am truly ashamed that you would think that our own parents would do such a thing. /They left us on Earth to see if we could survive and function together, but as you can see we have not been getting along. Still, I do not beleive you could say such a thing. And about all of the "alein" sightings, they were just checking up on us to see if we were redy for the "invasion". The day of the invasion will be a glorious day. Our parents will come to us and bring us to their home planet. I do not know where our parents currently are, but I based my whole life on it. I just hope that Earth can stop its conflicts so our parents will accept us.
raiyan
we will ivein space we have enoge tme so we should get help form all the countries and start this projet so we can live in space
raiyan
we will ive in space if we enough tiem so we should hurry and work on it
 

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