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| Uranus - natural colour |
First planet to be discovered by telescope, Uranus is a strange world.
Tilted at almost ninety degrees, it rolls around the sun like a big frozen ball
An ice giant like Neptune, it exhibits quirks which imply that unknown processes are at work. deep within.
The best images which we have date from 1986 when Voyager 2 flew by, yet no probe / lander is proposed until 2030, by which time, we'll be well established on Mars- there are already six explorers / orbiters on Mars, (and some publicity boosts in the form of popular films) *
It has been suggested that we could inhabit lava tubes on Mars, at least at first...hmmm, what could possibly go wrong?
NASA are already looking into ways to reduce journey time to Mars - with some innovative proposals on the table .
Various tests are underway for the human response to space travel ; recently subjects emerged from eight months of isolation and bed tests are underway for a sixty day period, with subjects being tilted downwards for that whole time.
It's a busy time, but there is room for more, with a serious discussion asking why we don't have at least one orbiter around each world in our solar system.
I just wonder when we will reach the ultimate military / space crossover point - i.e. when one of our orbiters gets shot down by disgruntled extraterrestrials who don't want their world to be streamed live...
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| Artists impression The binary asteroid 288P. Credit: ESA/Hubble, L. Calçada, CC BY 4.0 |
Regardless of the planets of our solar system, let's not forget that NASA are sending a mission to the sun.
Set for launch in 2018, the Parker Solar Probe will endure blistering temperatures of 1200 degrees centigrade: if that sounds rather trifling for a solar temperature, don't forget that the probe will be some 3million miles from the sun...hopefully, it will survive long enough to transmit its discoveries on this one-way mission.
Australia are set to have their own space agency - and why not ?
After all, there's plenty of wilderness for launches and landings.
Then again, large untamed spaces are a rarity these days, and I wondered why we can't avoid the
monstrous amount of fuel wasted in reaching escape velocity from Earth.
* Okay, so the old little green men / alien invaders trope is hardly flattering but no publicity is bad publicity. Besides, with our robot Mars explorers, we are the alien invaders...
