Glimpse Into The Future by Gerry Orz, age 12
What is it like to see the Earth and its 7 billion humans from 300 miles away? That is probably what 7 billion humans think when they think about space! A dangerous void to which we, humans, travel only for scientific reasons. Recently, NASA ended the space shuttle program is going back to the old capsule method of exploration. I honestly think that soon, travel across the world will be in less than 10 hours. People will get on a plane, the plane will travel over 100 miles above the earth’s surface and then land back on the other side of the world.
That is the next big step in what they call “space tourism.” This is where the public will go space vacations, rides and all of that good stuff. It does lead us to a point though – if we get advanced enough to travel outside of our own solar system, will we reach another civilization? NASA is building a new capsule, Orion. This baby is expected to explore deep space. Remember the satellite that is being sent to Mars? In my opinion, they would like to use it to study radiation. Mars exploration! What will that lead too? Would this be greatest leap since Thomas Jefferson? Or, the greatest fall back since war started? My opinion is, we can make Mars (since humans are pretty certain there are no aliens.) our pollution wasteland.
Earth is getting polluted with acid rain and smog-filled cities so, what can we do? Put it where it won’t affect anyone – on Mars! Mars really has no living creatures on it that would be affected by pollution and nothing on it that would be affected. The radiation on Mars is already high. Perhaps, maybe millions upon millions of years ago, it was like Earth with people destroying their own home planet.
Now, the public can see spaceships for themselves. At the California Science Center, you can see the famous space shuttle, Endeavor. There are other places, such as the Kennedy Space Center, where many exhibits are on display. Space really is an odd thing, where up and down are not relevant, where time really has no zones, where the length is unknown. That is space and maybe space exploration is in our foreseeable future.
