The Need for Space Exploration

Our universe is indescribably gigantic. According to the best estimates of astronomers, there are around 100 billion galaxies in the observable universe, and each galaxy contains, on average, at least a 100 billion stars. Take, for example, our own Galaxy, that contains around 300 billion stars. And here we are living on nothing but a small fragile world, a tiny speck lost in some corner of a macrocosm. Our Sun is one of those 300 billion stars located on the edge of the Milky Way, and orbits the center of our galaxy once every 225 to 250 million years.                  


Our ancestors started pondering and contemplating about our existence and our place in the universe thousands of years ago. But it was only until recently that we could send these so called 'machines' into the far reaches of outer space for exploration. This space-age began in late 1957 with the launch of the first artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. Today, there are a whopping 1071 operational satellites orbiting the earth, 2 satellites in orbit around the Moon, 1 spacecraft around Mercury, 1 at Venus, 3 visiting Mars, 1 orbiting Saturn, and 2 which are destined to leave our Solar System. But the question here is, why have we launched all these big and expensive machines to all these locations, other than those near our own planet ? Well, surely it isn't just for the sake of hedonism. We have done this out of curiosity. We've developed, within ourselves, a knack for exploring new worlds, studying their topography, their climate, the composition of their atmospheres, their atmospheric temperatures and pressures. But then again, why ?


                                     While our planet has sheltered humans for a very long time, in that duration, we have been obliviously blighting our planet in many ways. Deforestation, usage of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) present in refrigerators and deodorants, usage of fossil fuels to run vehicles and factories which emit noxious fumes as a by-product, which enshroud and envenom our atmosphere, and cause all sorts of adverse effects, including Global Warming and the depletion of the Ozone layer which we so desperately need to protect ourselves from the Sun’s UV rays. Or rather, humans are destroying our world slowly and steadily. But, who can we really blame ? We really cannot blame anyone, because we wouldn't survive for long if all those activities just happened to cease for an ephemeral period of time. This is where the need for space-exploration comes in. We need to look for young and promising worlds to settle upon, so our race is saved from extinction.


                       There isn't a planet in our Solar System that could sustain life. The Voyager 1 spacecraft is departing the solar system at a speed of 17.46 km/s, and the Voyager 2 spacecraft is departing the solar system at a speed of 16.08 km/s, in search of potential worlds. Out of those two, only Voyager 1 has completely left the solar system. Even at that breath-taking speed, it would take around 40,000 years for Voyager 1 to reach even the nearest star. So for now, we cannot rely on those two in our search for new planets. But in time, young pioneers, like you guys, would implement new ideas to make space-exploration devices more efficient and sophisticated. One day, searching for a new planet would just be a matter of minutes, not years. One day, we will wake up to realize that we have settled upon a bizarre, uncanny, idiosyncratic world orbiting a binary-star system. One day, we would have the privilege to look upon two Suns setting towards the west. One day, we shall.

Shreyash Dahale