Sixty-Three Years Leading Us to a Star Trek Life

On 1 October 2021, NASA celebrated the agency’s 63rd anniversary of operation. On October 5th two Russians, a film director and an actress, docked with the International Space Station to do a twelve day movie shoot. Are the past sixty-three years leading us to a Star Trek Life?

Photograph of NASA's control room in 19 with eight men crowded around control panels with dials and on off switches. Definitely not close to Star Trek Life.

The Beginning

In the summer of 1950, a two-stage rocket called Bumper 2 launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida. It reached an altitude 250 miles higher than the International Space Station’s altitude. Under the direction of General Electric, Bumper 2 rockets were used to test rocket systems and for upper atmosphere research. It was far from even the dream of a Star Trek Life.

On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched its Sputnik I. A basketball-sized satellite, Sputnik I, orbited the earth in 98 minutes.

Caught off-guard by the launch, the United States scrambled to develop similar or superior capabilities. In December, they launched their first satellite, the Vanguard. It exploded shortly after takeoff.

The first successful satellite launch in the U.S. came at the end of January 1958. In July of that year, Congress passed legislation that created NASA.

NASA’s Years

On October 1, 1958, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), began operating with 8,000 employees spread over four facilities. A small office in Washington DC directed operations. The agency also had three major research facilities and two test research sites. They had a 100 million dollar budget.

On October 11, NASA launched Pioneer 1.

Within six months, they unveiled the Mercury astronaut corps. It was 1961 before President John F. Kennedy issued his challenge to have a man on the moon by the end of the decade. Then, on July 20, 1969, NASA’s Apollo Mission and Neil Armstrong made history. Soaring to the moon with less technology than is in our kitchens today.

There have been near misses and tragic sacrifices along the way. NASA’s mission has shrunk and expanded. But their continuing research has given us many spinoffs.

Sixty+ Years Later

Photograph of the sleek and smaller workstations of NASA's control center in 2013. It looks like a slice of Star Trek life.
Date: 07-16-13 Location: Bldg 30 South, FCR-1 Subject: Expedition 36 ISS flight controllers on console during EVA #23 with Chris Cassidy and Luca Parmitano. Photographer: James Blair

In 2020, NASA had 17,373 employees and a budget of more than 22 billion dollars. There are ten major facilities and at least 8 smaller ones.

Besides NASA’s plans to launch projects into space, there are the NASA website. On the website you’ll find the NASA blog, NASA TV, NASA Live, NASA social media, educational sites, and tons and tons of photos and videos. There are apps and podcasts and ebooks and ringtones and so much more.

It’s not just the U.S. And the Russians. And it hasn’t been for years. More and more nations are launching rockets with human and nonhuman payloads. Celebrities and civilians are joining the ranks of the spacefaring.

The International Space Station (ISS) had been operational and continuously occupied for twenty years and 337 days. There are Mars One projects, and Mars rovers, and space telescopes to mention less than a handful of hundreds of projects from countries all over the Earth. Each project may hold discoveries that truly will launch us on our Star Trek Life.

And this has only been a portion of one lifetime of space adventures.

Conclusion

According to Wikipedia’s count, there were more than 200 successful spaceflights during 2020. We don’t have flying cars that can fold into a briefcase yet, so we aren’t ready for the Jetson life, but ISS has fresh chile peppers they’ve grown in orbit. And like a scene out of Star Trek, there’s a movie actress onboard ISS! Space hotels and voyages to Mars are in our near future. We’ve had sixty-three years leading us to a Star Trek life. Are you ready to “Boldy Go” sixty three more years?

Image Credits

Upper photo: Technicians and engineers monitor the countdown for the liftoff of Explorer 1 in the control room of the blockhouse at Space Launch Complex 26 at the Cape Canaveral Missile Annex (now Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.) Photo credit: NASA

Lower photo: (16 July 2013) — Flight directors and spacecraft communicators appear in the foreground of this scene in the space station flight control room of the Johnson Space Center’s Mission Control Center during the July 16 Expedition 36 spacewalk outside the International Space Station of astronauts Chris Cassidy of NASA and Luca Parmitano of the European Space Agency. From the left are Jerry Jason and David Korth at the FD console and astronauts Megan McArthur and Shane Kimbrough at the CAPCOM console. Issues with Parmitano’s spacesuit brought the spacewalk to an early end. Photo credit: NASA

Would You Like to be a Space Tourist?

There is getting away from it all and soon there will be opportunities for getting 240 miles above it all. That’s right. Soon you can be a space tourist.

View of sunrise over the earth--a view you can have if you'll be a space tourist

The First Orbital Vacation

SpaceX says tourists will ride its rockets late this year or early next.

SpaceX is the corporation behind the first successful commercial launch to the International Space Station. They are working with the space tourism company, Space Adventures.

For an undisclosed price, up to four tourists will ride the Falcon 9 rocket and the Crew Dragon spacecraft to orbit the earth three times at about 250 miles up.

On the Space Adventures website they also offer a flight to within a few hundred kilometers of the moon, a visit to the ISS, and a spacewalk. Cool, huh?

Private Citizens in Space

Image of three men onboard space station, one is the first private citizen ins space, would you be a space tourist
Public Domain image from NASA
Dennis Tito is on the left.

Seven private citizens have had adventures in space with the help of Space Adventures. Each of them spent more than 20 million each and a lot of time training before their flights.

American Dennis Tito blasted off from Kazakhstan on April 28, 2001, and spent nearly 8 days on the Russian space station. 

English/South African businessman Mark Shuttleworth flew Soyuz Flight TM-34 on April 25, 2002.

Gregory Olsen launched onboard Soyuz TMA-7 on October 1, 2005 and took part in a research program for the European Space Agency (ESA) onboard the ISS.

Iran-born, US emigrant, Anousheh Ansari lifted off on Soyuz TMA-9 on September 18, 2006. She conducted experiments onboard the ISS for the ESA.

Hungarian Charles Simonyi flew twice. He started a fourteen-day trip on April 7, 2007, onboard the Soyuz TMA-10. And he returned to space in March 2009, Simonyi onboard Soyuz TMA-14.

On October 12, 2008, onboard Soyuz TMA-13, British-American Richard Garriott was the sixth private citizen in space. And Canadian Guy Laliberte, the seventh and last citizen in space, took the Soyuz TMA-16 on September 30, 2009.

Space Hotels

There are several organizations that are working on plans for hotels in space. Each offers an experience of a lifetime.

Orion Span is another Houston-based startup that plans to open a space hotel called Aurora Station in 2022. This hotel would house four guests.

Design with tourism in mind, Aurora Station will feature a spacious interior to move around, large observation windows, personal sleeping quarters, great food, and plenty of activities to stay busy. Guests will build friendships that last a lifetime, and experience something that will change their lives forever.

Orion Span

The Gateway Foundation is planning a Von Braun class station. A wheel design, it promises to be a resort level vacation destination and spaceport. We’re not to the point of launching this one yet, but some project it will be open in the 2030s.

Would You Like to be a Space Tourist?

If money weren’t an issue, would you be a space tourist? If I were younger, I surely would.