ABOUT FACTS NET Space/Planets

Everybody wants to get into it. Countries are announcing plans to do it, that extend outward for at least 20 years into the future. Some that didn't seem really keen on the idea are now beating the drum. What am I talking about? Why its the new space race of course. In the 1960s only two countries really cared who got to the Moon. There had already been a first man in space and he was a Soviet. The U.S. was devastated, it felt that the entire prestige of the country was at stake, and indeed, the Soviets did make the most of their lead both in propaganda and in weapons manufacture. Everyone in the U.S. was scared to death of Sputnik when it was first launched. Most people had no idea that the Russians, at that time, were only capable of launching a basketball sized object. People had delusions that nukes were the next thing to be put up by the Russians or that perhaps Sputnik was also a nuclear bomb ready to drop down from orbit onto us. I am purposely using Russian and Soviet interchangeably since that is how the terms were used at the time.

Thank goodness all this came to pass. The Americans claimed victory in getting to the Moon, although there are some that claim that they have proof that we never landed on it. Be that as it may, we professed to landing on the Moon several times and then, just then, when every American expected us to start traveling out to the planets, or at least build a base on the Moon, everything stopped. It doesn't make much sense does it? We didn't even use all the rockets that we had for this purpose. Again some have different thoughts about this. There is a group of people who say we couldn't go back to the Moon anymore because aliens were there and warned us away. Makes you wonder thought, doesn't it, why they waited for several voyages to go there first? If you were an alien and didn't want us there, wouldn't you warn us away on the first trip or even prevent the first trip there? The next theory states that we have a secret Air Force space program and we have been going to the Moon and even Mars, secretly, on a regular basis and the Air Force program is much more advanced than the civilian NASA program. I must say that I personally have believed this myself. After all, it makes the most sense and this would answer many questions, such as the question of why we just stopped space travel. I don't count the shuttle since it really doesn't go anywhere except to the space station or around the Earth. Then there is that other group again who says, Hey there is no space program, it is all a fraud!.

Things have really changed since those days. Now you have all of Europe and many industrialized countries, and yes, even third world countries announcing their plans to go to the Moon. Some of them show promise that if they accomplish this task, it will be on the cheap, comparatively speaking. I am talking about India who's space agency has a budget that we would consider miniscule, yet is able to wring out every last rupee. Try and do that here and every congressman and lawmaker up to the president would be barraged by the multibillion dollar contracting companies that build the vehicles and equipment used by this country. If the American public really understood what was going on there, we would have another revolution in this country. Japan has now announced that it is going to land men on the Moon in about 20 years. Easy to say that, isn't it. But they will have to try because they now have a prestige problem since China is more advanced in their space program than the Japanese and China has announced they will land a man on the Moon. The Chinese managed to obtain a lot of rocket propulsion secrets from hungry American manufacturers, a few years ago. This has given them a leg up on some countries. It also didn't hurt that China and Russia have been friends for many years and Russia makes the best rocket engines in the world, so good in fact, that we are using one of them. It has 30 percent fewer parts and puts out the most power for its size. Unfortunately these things have two uses. One is for space travel and the other is for powering missiles.

The European Space program is determined not to just sit back and let the Asians conquer space. They have announced that they will put a man on the Moon also. Boy that Moon is going to get crowded! I hope that they put a restroom up there. Right now there are only three nations on Earth capable of launching a human into space. They are the U.S., Russia and China, but look for this to change soon even though the analysts from the U.S. deny this will happen. I guess all these countries saying that they are going to put a man on the Moon must have figured out how to do it without putting a man into space. The U.S. has stated that it too will put a man on the Moon (Again). Doesn't it seem that if we really wanted to do it, we could do it in a year or two? You might even be able to modify a shuttle for the short trip of a day or two. I say day or two because we are faster today than we were on that first trip. If we do wait for about twenty years or so, many other countries may enter the race. You might find Israel, South Africa, Canada or Australia headed there. A lot of people don't realize it but the Canadian space program employs over 3500 people on a full time basis and has a budget over 1/2 billion dollars per year. As strange as it sounds, a civilian company might be able to do it by then. It would take a giant corporation like Boeing or Lockheed, but if they think that they can make money by doing this, they might feel it is worth the investment.

The Japanese now have a rocket called the H2 that is capable of boosting 27 tons into low orbit using 4 methane engines. They are also building an unmanned space plane called the Hope. They have suffered setbacks in the last year. The Chinese have gotten so advanced that they have formed the Great Wall Company and sell launches. Their prices are lower than the EAU and U.S. India now builds its own satellites. After we lost Landsat 6 and 7, the Indian remote sensing satellites were the only ones in orbit with extreme sensing capabilities. The French had SPOT but it wasn't as sensitive. In 1961 Brazil founded its space agency and uses its own vehicles to launch its own satellites. These are the countries that have space programs but buy launch vehicles: Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Egypt, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, the Netherlands, Pakistan, the Philippines, Portugal, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom. Please take note that some of these countries are in the European Union and would purchase the EAU launch vehicle which they had a part in developing.

So there we are, in about 20 years or so, they may need an air traffic controller to control all the flights taking off for the Moon.