Form Mars to Titan

by David Vivancos

We find ourselves in one of the best moments in the space exploration history since the landing on the Moon or since Copernicus, Kepler, Tico Brahe, Galileo or Newton whom established the basic knowledge needed to understand the universe, in the year of the centenary of the fundamental discoveries of Einstein.

Recently the European Space Agency ESA, landed a small ship “the Hyugens probe” on Titan one of the intriguing moons of Saturn, sending incredible data, pictures and sounds before it’s death, of a planet that may be like infant Earth, the scientific relevance of this data is up to come and for sure will reveal some of its secrets. In addition, the mothership Cassini of NASA is sending astounding data and pictures of Saturn, its rings and moons.

At the same time two robots run in the surface of the planet Mars, maybe the planet that has captivated the minds of many people including H.G. Wells and others.

But the thing is that paradoxically the human exploration of the space hardly advanced since the big efforts to reach the Moon in the 60’s. Why hasn’t the human space flight developed as much as the conventional flight developed almost 100 years ago?

At the end, we are seeking to answer basic questions like, where we come from? And, are we alone? my personal bet is that in this two decades we will answer the second question discovering evident clues of life in other places in our own solar systems, with profound implications to our society.

The role of space exploration in this decade will change dramatically with the development of new ways of reaching and traveling through space.