For thousands of years, man has been contemplating the sky to understand and explore this infinite space, and today scientists are continuing their efforts to return to the moon, or perhaps land on Mars one day.
Is there life there? Or intelligent extraterrestrial beings? And will Mars be a tourist destination for those who are tired of Earth's destinations? These and other questions were the orbit of Al Jazeera's documentary film "Unknown Space" as part of the Cosmic Science series.
Space tourism. Private sector intrusion into the worlds of heaven
Since the flight of Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin in 1961, space exploration has not lost its vitality, and today access to space has become easier, and it is no longer limited to government agencies, but private sectors have sent people off the planet. In the New Mexico desert, Virgin Galactic is putting the finishing touches on its first subtropical test flight, in 2020.
Space tourism flights are a near future in the prospects of American space companies
600 customers have pre-purchased their tickets at a price of $ 250,8, and put 6,2 people on the waiting list, and at this price 15 passengers will board the "Spaceship 90", and at an altitude of <> kilometers astronauts will be placed in a carrier vehicle and pushed towards an altitude of <> kilometers, to live the experience of zero gravity, and enjoy the view of the Earth for several minutes.
Scientists support space tourism, as it educates people, and when they see Earth from space, borderless continents and the oceans flowing around the Earth, they gain more awareness of how connected they are and how important they are to the safety and protection of the planet.
International terminal flights. The starting key and the project finance resource
Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, entered the space tourism field through his secondary company "Blue Origin", and his spacecraft "Newshepherd" conducted its last test flights in early 2021, and six people will take the journey on board the capsule to reach an altitude of 95 kilometers, and the capsule launcher can be used after each launch, and travelers will return by parachute attached to the cabin.
Astronaut returns to Earth after spending a few months on the International Space Station
There could be commercial flights to the International Space Station, as billionaire Elon Musk's SpaceX launched a flight with two NASA astronauts to orbit the Earth, and they arrived at the ISS without problems.
These days, private astronauts can spend a short time in space for $35,<> a night for using the air, water, internet and toilet at the International Station, and to get there they have to board NASA-approved capsules, such as SpaceX or Boeing capsules.
NASA expects to save money by resorting to the private sector, having spent $3 billion over the past two decades on operations related to the International Space Agency, and will instead direct its budget towards a pilot project to return to the moon and conduct research on Mars and the possibility of landing on it, and will allocate $71 billion over the next five years to the ambitious Artemis program.
Spacesuits. The challenges of living on the moon
New spacesuits have been designed that allow astronauts to bend their joints easily, and they are made of inner layers that can be removed and added according to the external temperature, the temperature on the moon is between -150 and +150 degrees Celsius, and the ultimate goal is to establish a permanent lunar base as soon as possible by 2028.
But staying on the moon requires special protection from radiation, and samples of future space homes have been developed by artificial intelligence programs, which are made up of natural materials on the surfaces of planets such as basalt, mixed with nanoplastic threads stronger than cement, and protected against temperature differences and solar and cosmic radiation.
New spacesuits made of inner layers that the astronaut can remove and add according to the outside temperature
Going on that trip means the astronaut remains trapped for a long time in a narrow and enclosed space, and with other astronauts, and this causes special types of psychological stress, which astronauts should practice while on Earth. The ISS remains the best place to train crews in the long term.
These include putting a person in a windowless soundproof room for five days, being asked to get work done during the day, and asking them to sleep, eat and exercise at certain times. Specialists monitor how much work they can accomplish, the length of time and isolation of the place on a person's behavior, weaknesses that may generate conflicts with the crew and prevent the goal from being completed, and then exclude the wrong people.
Mars journey. The ambition to turn science fiction into reality
On the way to Mars, astronauts spend six months to travel 400 million kilometers, before reaching the Red Planet, and the crew will spend a month there, and the return journey takes 13 months during which they pass near Venus, and they have to get used to living together for more than a year and a half, and NASA expects to launch the flight in 2030.
3D printers participate in the competition to build future settlements on the moon
Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, believes that Mars is a place of settlement, and humans must be able to move between planets, and works to turn science fiction into reality, and builds models of the "Starship" vehicle capable of carrying a hundred passengers into space, and will be launched by the most powerful rocket, the "Super Heavy", which has a diameter of 9 meters, a length of 68 meters, and is equipped with 37 engines.
Musk plans to send a thousand vehicles to build a sustainable foundation, and although Mars is a harsh, barren desert that is not suitable for living, Musk has found its first traveler, Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa, and in the worst case scenario if Yusaku cannot land on Mars, it will orbit the moon, enough to prove the trust of the rocket and the project.
Comet impact. A threat to the survival of the human race
Some people fear the extinction of the human race if the Earth is hit by an object with a diameter of 10 kilometers, so they find that the best solution is to colonize neighboring planets in space, such as Mars and others, and see in this adventure the protection and continuation of the human race.
Dart mission whose probe hit the asteroid Demorphos
Scientists recall a comet with a diameter of 20 meters across over Russia in 2015, causing damage to tens of thousands of buildings, and the latest shock that exceeds the intensity of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima by many times, and there are thousands of comets with diameters exceeding hundreds of meters, and can cause enormous damage if they hit the ground, and these events are repeated every 10,<> years.
Johns Hopkins University and NASA have developed the Dart rover capable of changing the direction of asteroids, and to verify the accuracy of its concept and technology, engineers will test the effectiveness of this vehicle by targeting the asteroid "Demorphos", which is 160 meters long, and 11 million kilometers from Earth.
Some asteroids pose a threat to life on Earth
Launched in July 2021, Dart reached its destination in December 2022, with a speed of 23,700 km/h, enough to change the asteroid's destination. It will be followed by lunar flights that will measure the extent of the damage caused by the impact, how much Demorphos' direction has deflected, and how fast it has decreased.
Space race. Digging up traces of life on Mars
Since the first spacecraft were sent in the sixties, some 20 successful missions have followed, and these space probes and rovers are constantly scanning the surface of Mars and sending out more extraordinary images, such as the ice accumulated at the poles of Mars.
In 2020, NASA launched the Perseverance mobile rover to explore the surface of Mars
In the summer of 2020, from the Kennedy Space Center, NASA sent the Perseverance rover to explore the surface of Mars, and it arrived on the Red Planet in February 2021, with the main goal of searching for manifestations of past life.
Scientists chose Jezero Crater as a landing site, located north of the Martian equator, and traces of a lake and delta were found, leaving a chance for organic matter or bacteria. The spacecraft will prepare 20 Martian soil samples and bring them back to Earth by 2030.
The Chinese will also send a probe to Mars, and the Tianwen mission will send a satellite into orbit and land a rover on Mars to study its soil. The UAE entered the race with the Hub satellite in 2021, the product of a collaboration with American universities, and will orbit Mars for two years to gather weather and climate information there.
A sample from Mars Steam returned to Earth via a rocket that ejects it into an orbiter
The European and Russian space agencies are collaborating to send the Rosalind-Franklin rover in 2022, whose mission is to collect samples of Martian soil thanks to the drilling robot that digs two meters deep, to ensure samples that are not affected by the cosmic radiation that constantly explodes the surface of Mars.
If man can prove the existence of life on Mars and the planets of our solar system, can't it be proven on other groups and galaxies? There are hundreds of billions of planets in the Milky Way alone, and there are hundreds of billions of other galaxies, so the number of stars simply cannot be counted.
Semi-Earth. Remote planets in the habitable range
Ground and space telescopes have so far discovered 6,<> planets outside our solar system, each orbiting a star, and there are Earth-sized planets, close to their stars, so their surfaces are hot, contain molten lakes, and have no atmosphere due to their high temperature due to their proximity to their stars. There are Earth-sized planets with icy ice that have a dense cold envelope and icy oceans.
To date, scientists have discovered more than 6000,<> stellar planets.
In 2018, NASA sent the TESS telescope, whose goal is to find Earth-sized planets orbiting small stars near our solar system, and TESS relies on the amount of visible light and covers a space 300 times larger than Kepler.
When a planet passes in front of its star, the star's light decreases by less than 1% of its usual light, so telescopes discover that a planet has crossed in front of its star at this time, and this is called the "transit" technique, and this information is enough for scientists to determine the size and density of the planet, and thus know whether it is rocky or gaseous.
In January 2020, TESS discovered a rocky planet 20% larger than the size of Earth, called TOI-700-D, 700 light years away, and orbiting its dwarf sun once every 101 days, and this planet interests researchers, as it is located in the "habitable zone", and this is a description of the distance that separates the planet from its sun, allowing water to remain liquid on its surface.
Transit is the most popular way to find stellar planets
But how do we know that planet has water on it? This is what the James Webb International Telescope may tell us, which is the fruit of US-European-Canadian cooperation, and one of its tasks is to examine the atmosphere of planets, and through infrared light will be able to determine the presence of water and ozone.
"Voyeurism". Deep Universe Galaxies Tapping Project
Since the sixties, researchers have been tirelessly scrutinizing the sky, hoping to pick up signals sent by extraterrestrials, but the signals captured at the time were only the product of the technology of humans themselves, and scientists have since developed their tools and ideas, in order to ascertain the fact that other organisms exist or not.
LEGO Radio Telescope Captures First Gravitational Wave from Deep Universe
In this context, the Russian billionaire and scientist Yuri Milner invested $ 100 million over 10 years, in order to capture any electromagnetic waves different from natural waves, through huge radio receivers located in Australia, Maryland and South Africa, and their mission is to eavesdrop on a million stars and a hundred galaxies near our galaxy.
This project is known as "voyeurism", and uses artificial intelligence to analyze information, separating it from satellite signals, and China is participating in this project through its radio telescope "FAST", the largest in the world, with a diameter of 500 meters.
China's largest FAST radio telescope in the world, with a diameter of 500 meters
On September 14, 2015, the world was on a date with an amazing scientific discovery, as it received two American cats, between them 3,1 kilometers, a gravitational wave coming from the deep universe, it is the same waves predicted by "Einstein" about a hundred years ago, and it is the result of the fusion of two black holes, 3.30 billion light years away from us, each mass equivalent to approximately <> solar masses, and this wave crossed thousands of galaxies until it reached us.
There may come a day when we understand the laws that govern the universe, discover new worlds, and see cosmic phenomena billions of light-years away, and day by day scientists seek to increase our understanding of the universe. The sense of exploration in humans is always present, and exploring the universe is no longer a luxury, but a necessity for success.