Can the 20s of the New Millennium be the beginning of a new Space Race era?
Can it last longer than the one that brought the Man on the Moon and are there differences with the very first Space Race of the 1960s?
Even though the 2020s have not started in the best way possible for Humanity (read: Covid-19 pandemic), by looking at the projects on the way and at the ones to be accomplished in the next years, the way seems paved for a bright Future.
Moreover, the flags that float now in Space are no more limited to USA and Russia.
In 2021 NASA landed its Perseverance rover on Mars and then Ingenuity Drone soared over the surface, setting new records as the first controlled flying object over another Planet.
Two new Nations in the party are China and United Arab Emirates (UAE): the first landed its rover Zhurong on Mars in May 2021 and also UAE set their first orbiting satellite around the Red Planet.
While on one side public or governmental agencies are still dominating the scene as research and deep Space is regarded, on the more 'domestic' side SpaceX has been the first private company to accomplish a ferry flight up to the International Space Station with astronauts onboard.
This had probably the biggest impact on how Space will be seen in the next Future: no more simply as the furthest frontier to be conquered by humanity for the sake of exploration, but also as a new commercial field in which also private companies and entrepreneurs will be able to develop their business and give value back to the whole humanity. There will be outposts in Earth's orbit as well as on the Moon, even placed on its far side (see our article about the lunar gateway).
The frontier is nowadays set on Mars for the human presence, while the unmanned vehicles, see Voyager, are even traveling in interstellar Space!
Another aspect which differs from the 1960s is the cooperation between Agencies. See as an example the BepiColombo project, which is a cooperation between European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan Space Agency (JAXA). It is intended to study Mercury, a planet we still know relatively little about.
See the International Space Station, the biggest and most known example of cooperation: people from the most different Countries in the World share the same home for months, living and working together on a ship which was designed and built from people living and working in the most different cultures on Earth.
Half a century ago, the ‘race’ was functional to a strategic war dominance between the two biggest Nations of those days, and a direct consequence of that conflict. Man would have never gone on the Moon so fast from the famous announcement of J.F. Kennedy to the landing of the Eagle without the push of a pressing conflict.
Even though now this war pressure is hidden behind diplomacy and intelligence of the Countries involved, there is a new element in the equation: the profit of private companies. If we as humanity will be able to use it as an instrument to give value back on Earth and to keep pushing our outpost toward space, that will for sure make the modern Space Race accomplish exponentially higher results.
This is just a glimpse on what is going to happen in the Future of Space, and it seems to be as bright as it has never been.
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Some has already been published about this topic, and more will be in the future!
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