Space X's reusable space rockets are, right now, opening up a huge new future in space.
The Falcon Heavy is half as powerful as the Saturn V itself.
It costs less than the old Titan-Centaur that launched the Voyager probes.
Wanna know what this is opening up?
In the next 2 and a half years (as of June 2022) three space probes will be launched with this huge rocket.
Keep in mind that this is not all the space probes NASA has planned for the next few years.
Just the ones going up on the huge Falcon Heavy.
First will be Psyche, a huge spacecraft to the highly unique asteroid Psyche, which appears to be made of metal.
The Psyche spacecraft is 3 times the size of the Voyager space probes.
It will carry out a mission similar to that of the Dawn spacecraft, with enough fuel to spend almost twice as long in a controlled orbit around its asteroid as the NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft.
But in addition, Psyche is testing out two new technologies that, if they work, will revolutionize space travel.
Its ion engines are the first Hall-effect thrusters to be used beyond lunar orbit. These ion thrusters are more powerful than other current ion thrusters. They can achieve a higher thrust- a higher thrust that, being an ion engine, can be thrusting constantly for months or years.
This could be the technology that opens up Mars, the asteriod belt and the entire inner solar system to manned exploration.
This is the technology that could put a man on Mars- and send a man to asteroids in the asteroid belt.
This is a technology that we will be using in the Artemis program, to send us back to the Moon.
And there is another technology on Psyche that might revolutionize space travel forever- one that is currently in the testing phase.
Laser communications.
Psyche will test out the possibility of using lasers for communications across deep space.
Normal radio waves get weaker over distance.
Lasers don't.
This could revolutionize communications across deep space.
All this while carrying out a mission comparable to that of the Dawn spacecraft, one of the most exciting space missions ever, staying in controlled orbit around the Psyche asteroid longer than any spacecraft ever has around an asteroid.
A very unique asteroid that has never been visited before.
That is highly unlike any asteroid ever visited so far.
That's just one mission. To be launched this very year!
Next year (2023) the Falcon Heavy will launch a lunar lander that will deliver to the difficult to-reach lunar south pole- where the water ice is- a lunar rover over twice the size of Spirit and Opportunity- not to a normal landing site, but to the extremely difficult to reach lunar south pole! To study the water ice there!
And then, in 2024, the big one.
The most ambitious space probe since the Voyager probes.
The Europa probe.
An orbiter- around Jupiter, but able to study Europa for years- seven times the size of the Voyager spacecraft, with the most ambitious, most sophistocated set of scientific instruments ever sent up in a space probe, to study the ocean beneath the surface of Europa.
To study the ocean- of liquid water- that may support life- beneath the surface of Europa!
To look for life on a planet far more likely to support life than Mars, perhaps more likely to support life than some conditions on Earth that do support life!
To look for life on another planet- Europa!
To study the subsurface ocean of Europa looking to see if it is suitable for supporting alien life!
This space probe has a far more likely chance of studying a planet that supports alien life than the Viking landers ever were!
Alien life!
Life on another planet!
Studying the living environment that could likely support alien life!
On another planet- one very different from Earth, yet unlike Mars, likely to support life!
Right here, right now!
To go up in 2024! In just a couple of years!
This is our future in outer space.
Right now.
Right now, in the next few years.
And we are going back to the Moon.
We are going back to the Moon!
And the James Webb Space Telescope has been successfully launched!
A space telescope much more powerful than even Hubble!
And for no more than a few hundred thousand dollars- far less than a million dollars- you- you yourself- can fly in space on a Blue Origin or Virgin Galactic spacecraft!
The future is here!
Out future in space is here! Right now!
These are the Good Old Days!
These are new new days of Gemini and Apollo, Viking and Voyager!
Right here, right now! To go up in the next few years, in our own time!
Beginning with the first pictures from a fully operational James Webb Space Telescope next month, July, of this very year!
Thank you, Lord!
Mark that date- July 12, 2022, the first fruits of our new era in space will be here!
The first pictures from a fully operational James Webb Space Telescope!
And already people like you and me, for far less than a million dollars, can fly in space ourselves- just like William Shatner did!
Our future in space is here!
Right here, right now!
These are the new days of Gemini and Apollo, Viking and Voyager!
Thank you, Lord!
God loves you!
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson