Things space-related that most of you will see in your lifetimes.

[rodsky]

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This decade and the next will be exciting times for the human race. It will be our first "wading" into the "shores of the cosmic ocean" as described by Carl Sagan.

2010 - First commercial spaceflights (suborbital) via Virgin Galactic
2014 - First commercial spaceflights (orbital) via Virgin Galactic
2015 - First photographs of the minor planet Pluto and its moons (New Horizons spacecraft encounter).
2018 - Planned US manned landing on the moon
2020 - Planned Chinese manned landing on the moon

And further on...

2025 - first moonbases (US and China)
2030 - commercial mining of Helium-3 on the moon (will help solve excessive fossil fuel consumption on earth, resulting in a greener, healing earth)
2030 - full-fledged commercial space travel from earth to LEO, from LEO to moonbases, and vice-versa.
2035 - first manned Mars missions
2040 - first permanent Mars outposts

Inserted in between these dates, are the still-unknown attempts of other commercial enterprises to establish presence in space...who knows, maybe your neighbor's kid is a future rocket scientist who invents a new revolutionary propulsion system

...I'm happy and feel privileged to live in these exciting times.

-RODION

[handsoff241]

Source(s)' link please. Thanks.

[rodsky]

Source(s)' link please. Thanks.

Virgin Galactic

Constellation program - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

NASA - Constellation Main

Project Constellation

Project Constellation / Vision for Space Exploration [VSE]

Scaled Composites, LLC: composite aircraft design, prototyping and flight test

Chinese space program - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Chinese Lunar Base

Space Exploration Technologies Corporation - SpaceX

More will follow, as I get the time.

BTW, it turns out that my estimates have been modest. Here is an interview of Elon Musk, former founder/CEO of PAYPAL, and now CEO of SpaceX, the world's first private space company (that launched Falcon 1, the world's first commercial rocket capable of LEO). He bets that a manned mission to Mars can be done by 2020.

YouTube - SpaceX CEO Bets Manned Mission to Mars by 2020

Musk's SpaceX was contracted by NASA to deliver cargo and crew to the ISS via the "Dragon", after the space shuttle is retired by late 2010.



He's confident, because he has the means now. And all of this from money he got after selling Paypal to ebay.com

Incidentally, Elon also is CEO of Tesla Motors (yep, the all-electric sports car company).

-RODION

[blackdronza]

2025 - first moonbases (US and China)?

Is this possible? US and China have cold relationships nowadays with regards to nuke program.

[rodsky]

Is this possible? US and China have cold relationships nowadays with regards to nuke program.

Exactly. I didn't say these bases were jointly owned by US and China. China has its own Lunar program, totally independent of what the rest of the world is doing (please check the links above). This is why they are non-participants in the ISS program. Thus, it's logical to conclude that when they make their lunar base, it's going to be built on a part of the moon that's signficantly far from any NASA/ESA/RSA base.

Chinese Lunar Base

Additionally, aside from these government-run programs, these smaller companies (please click on the link) have a fair shot at establishing their own presence in LEO, the moon, or Mars...

List of private spaceflight companies - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

One of the more interesting companies and personalities on this list is John Carmack (whose former company, ID Software, made the very popular Doom and Quake computer games), who is CEO of Armadillo Aerospace, and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, who is CEO of Blue Origin. Seems that the next wave of space exploration is going to be funded by computer gaming and money from the internet.

-RODION

[grovestreet]

exciting indeed...

but For now i guess it's only accessible to what we call the "elite class". So we'll probably be dead before ordinary folks like us could see outer space.

[rodsky]

exciting indeed...

but For now i guess it's only accessible to what we call the "elite class". So we'll probably be dead before ordinary folks like us could see outer space.

That is a rather pessimistic viewpoint, but well taken.

-RODION

[vern]

" ... and further on" is a bit stretching it now that there is nothing pushing for any of these things to happen ... ie: the cold war. The global economy will eventually dictate what happens.

[rodsky]

there is nothing pushing for any of these things to happen

If Helium-3 is the answer to the world's "addiction" to fossil fuels (which is getting more and more scarce), I think this is enough "push" for at least lunar mining to happen.

-RODION

[handsoff241]

Okay that's great, man can't get enough of raping earth now we want to rape the moon. Nice, there's gonna be faster internet to cater connections to the moon and cheaper.