WASHINGTON — NASA celebrates 50 years of space exploration this year — and the agency is already looking ahead to new frontiers.
From landing on the moon to exploring life on Mars, it may seem that scientists and astronauts have thought of it all. But that’s not the case. NASA officials hope the next half century of exploration will be just as exciting, if not more, than the last because the work is not quite done.
Plans to explore all of the planets and moons of each planet in our solar system, send the first manned mission to Mars, explore its moon, and look for life on Pluto, are all under way.
“NASA is also working on deep space with Lagrange points, or possibly hitching a ride on an asteroid, mining it and seeing what is there, or perhaps landing on the far side of the moon,” said Paul E. Ceruzzi, chair and curator in the Space History Division at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington.
Despite reports of evidence of life on Mars, Ceruzzi said there are no definitive signs.
Still, Mars is the focus and scientists think there may be life on some of the moons of Saturn or Jupiter.
At the moment, though, looking beyond The Milky Way is not within our technological reach.
“Forget it, you just can’t get there,” Ceruzzi said. “The nearest galaxy is many light years away and the fastest a space craft can travel is no more 50,000 miles an hour. I don’t think we can do it with a physical object, yet, but I am not saying it is impossible.”
Ceruzzi said getting to a nearby star is more feasible because they are about four light years away.
“Anyone whose seen Star Trek or (Star) Wars knows about warp-drive, traveling faster than light and if you want to get to another galaxy, that’s probably what you need to do,” Ceruzzi said.
The problem with traveling faster than light is that it doesn’t fit well with Einstein’s theory of special relativity.
“If we were to go faster than light, we would travel backward in time which would cause all kinds of things that science fiction writers love to write about, but so far physics doesn’t seem to support that,” Ceruzzi said. “We haven’t seen any evidence of that and we certainly haven’t seen anybody from the future here.”