In the beginning was Sputnik - B - the next fifty years in space

On the occasion of the anniversary of the space age, Tal Inbar talks about Sputnik 1, the space race, the intelligence satellites and also about implications for humanity and thoughts about the future. Part II'

the next fifty years

What will be written in the celebratory review to mark the centenary of Sputnik 1? It is difficult to give accurate predictions. In my library there are books on space topics from the 2057s to the XNUMXs, which are filled with imaginative descriptions of the applications of space in the future... which is now behind us. The vast majority of these predictions did not come true. At the same time, in terms of what is currently being done in the world of space exploration, it is possible to try to make a prediction of trends and events that will occur until the year XNUMX. The marks of the years, especially the more distant ones in time, are of course only an estimate.

The United States will return to the moon - for now, the declared date for the return of the United States to the moon with manned spacecraft ("Orion" spacecraft) is 2018. There may be minor changes, which will postpone the mission until 2020. At the same time, the declarations of other countries about their desire to reach to the moon would be an incentive for the United States to arrive as early as possible.
China, India and Japan will reach the moon - Japan has not yet announced plans to explore the moon with manned spacecraft, but it seems that it will not be able to afford to remain behind the other Asian delegations in the next space race.
The price of a suborbital flight has dropped to $10,000, a million space tourists in 2040.
A manned mission to Mars will reach its destination in 2040. A manned landing on an asteroid - 2042.
An Earth-like planet with signs of oxygen in its atmosphere will be discovered by 2035, using the American TPF telescope array.
The first robotic plant for mining helium-3 from the moon will be inaugurated on the eightieth birthday of the man's landing on the moon, 2049. The helium-3 that will be mined will be used for power plants on Earth, which will provide clean energy to billions of people.
Nuclear propulsion for research spacecraft in the solar system. The duration of an unmanned journey to Mars will be shortened to a month. An unmanned journey to Saturn will take 3 months.
The International Space Station will be abandoned in 2020, and space stations from the United States, Russia, Europe, Japan and China will operate in its place.
A space war will take place between the United States and China. Talks between the two countries regarding the reduction of armaments in space following the war will reach an impasse. In the space war, there will be no casualties, but the direct damages will be estimated at two hundred billion dollars, and the indirect damages - in the amount of a trillion dollars.
Disaster in a space hotel - space debris hitting an inflatable space station will result in the death of dozens of people. The disaster will affect the international project to clean up space in the near-Earth environment. The flights to the space hotels will be suspended for five years, until the next space cleaning.
Suborbital space planes will significantly shorten the flights from various destinations on Earth. A flight from coast to coast in the United States will take about thirty minutes, and from the United States to Japan - an hour and a quarter.
Robotic research missions will land a fleet of submarines on Jupiter's moon Europa. Drilling into the ice sheet will reveal the north of this moon's ocean, and if life exists there.
New countries will join the "satellite launchers club": Brazil, South Korea, Taiwan and Iran, which will launch satellites using self-made launchers.
New space launchers will lower the costs of launching into space up to $1,000 per kg (currently the cost is about $20,000 per kg).
Swarms of tiny satellites will be launched for the first time in 2015. A mission to Mars will launch 1,000 nanosatellites in a single launch.
2057: The first asteroid to be towed from the asteroid belt will be brought into high Earth orbit on the 1th anniversary of the launch of Sputnik XNUMX. This asteroid will serve as a mine for metals that have almost run out of Earth.

You can continue to list predictions as you wish - but past experience reveals that some of the predictions seemed ridiculous when the "due date" arrived, and many times the technology and the ability to perform various space missions exist, but the will and political willingness to mobilize the resources required to fulfill the plans do not exist.

On the 1th birthday of the space age, the observer will judge the achievements of the second anniversary of the launch of Sputnik XNUMX: has humanity been able to unite forces and pool resources for the scientific research of space and human well-being, or will we once again witness a sort of "replay" of the interstate rivalries that characterized the beginning of the space age, When the name of the game was prestige?

Tal Inbar is the head of the Center for Space Research, the Fisher Institute for Strategic Air and Space Research, and the chairman of the Israel Space Association

to the first part of the article

The article was published in Issue 110 of the Galileo journal