![]() ![]() It had spaceships landing on the moons of Jupiter and astronauts driving pressurised rovers on the moons of even more distant Saturn. Then there was Patrick Moore, who wrote a fascinating book in the 1970s called The Next 50 Years in Space, with wonderful illustrations by David Hardy. He was aware that we could take our Earthly troubles into space. He also talked, in a typically Sagan way, of looking for a benign aperture through which to see the 21st century and a hopeful future for the human species. I recall talking with Carl Sagan in a hotel in London about the future of space and our discussion automatically moved to Mars. While writing it I realised what Arthur would have felt like when writing his profiles of the future. Having just looked back 50 years to the first lunar landing I thought it would be interesting to assess what we might have achieved 100 years xiiafter the ‘small step’. This book grew out of my previous book, Apollo 11: The Inside Story. I wonder what Arthur would have said if I had the chance to tell him that one day I would write a book about ‘only’ the next 50 years in space. Those who know his works would say that Arthur was far too optimistic over timescales of decades and centuries, but far too pessimistic when looking thousands or millions of years into the future! It was one of Arthur’s books that really inspired me when I was barely in my teens. ‘Dammit,’ he told me, ‘I thought we’d be at Jupiter by 2001, but I don’t think we will be back on the Moon by then.’ He felt it would speed up getting humans there. Have you seen the latest images from Mars? Most weird.’Īrthur C. Irecall one Tuesday afternoon in the 1990s I was sitting at my desk in Broadcasting House, home of the BBC, and the phone rang. ‘By three methods we may learn wisdom: first, by reflection, which is the noblest second, by imitation, which is the easiest and the third by experience, which is the bitterest.’ĭigging, Drilling and Driving on the Moon In the 2050s, a lander will descend to the frozen surface of Jupiter's moon Europa and attempt to drill down to its subsurface ocean in search of life.īased on real-world information, up-to-date scientific findings and a healthy dose of realism, Space 2069 is a mind-expanding tour of humanity's future in space over the next 50 years. Surviving the round trip will be the greatest challenge any astronaut has yet faced. ![]() The first crewed mission to Mars will briefly orbit the red planet in 2039, preparing the way for a future landing mission. The thirteenth man and the first woman to walk on the Moon will be the first to explore the lunar south pole - the prime site for a future Moon base thanks to its near-perpetual sunlight and the presence of nearby ice. With NASA's Artemis program scheduled for this decade, astronomer David Whitehouse takes a timely look at what the next 50 years of space exploration have in store. Nearing half a century since the last Apollo mission, mankind has yet to return to the Moon, but that is about to change. an intelligent portrait of where we may be in the next half-century. 'It is rare to read something that so closely mixes science fiction with reality, but Space 2069 does just that.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |