Guest post: To boldly go, by Andy Peatling
Since I was very small I’ve always been fascinated by space. There is so much out there to explore, so much we don’t know about, and most importantly, so much potential.
Humans first stepped on the moon almost exactly 40 years ago to the day. It can’t be underestimated how much of an amazing feat that was. In the span of eight years the US went from barely being able to get a satellite orbiting the Earth, to putting a man on the moon and bringing them safely back home.
It’s quite amazing what people can accomplish when they really want to get something done. More so, it’s quite amazing what people can accomplish when they get competitive. Would the US have put a man on the moon in such a short amount of time if the Russians weren’t potentially going to beat them to it? Probably not.
Competition. It’s what’s been missing for the last 40 years, and in my opinion probably one of the main reasons why we’ve been stuck in manned low Earth orbit missions since.
It’s my belief we should be pushing for a manned mission to Mars. I think we can learn a lot about mankind by visiting and digging on that planet. We’ve found water (albeit salty) and no more than 20 years ago this was unthinkable. Where there is water, there is usually life. Even if we find nothing, we will have broadened our horizons past the Earth-Moon system.
We have the technology to send people to Mars today. The Mars Direct program proves this. We don’t need to establish a base on the Moon first.
What’s the hold up? Nothing. We just need another Space Race.
Andy Peatling is a Social Engineer for Automattic, the creators of WordPress. He created BuddyPress, a platform to transform WordPress into a social network. Andy is also a good friend of mine, an avid soccer player and knows way more about beer than I do (which is good).
This is Entry # 8 of 49
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