SPACE, AN UNCERTAIN FRONTIER.If we at once admit the foolishness of these perennially suggested “impedi-ments” to star flight, we will be on our way to understanding that interstellar space does not need a bridge too far. Interstellar travel may still be in its infancy, but adulthood is fast approaching, and our descendants will someday see child-

hood’s end - Dr. Eugene Mallove and Dr. Gregory Matloff, The Starflight Handbook, 1989.

The first human spaceflight was Vostok 1 on April 12, 1961, on which cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin of the USSR made one orbit around the Earth. In official Soviet documents, there is no mention of the fact that Gagarin parachuted the final seven miles. The international rules for aviation records stated that “The pilot remains in his craft from

launch to landing”.

Shooting for the stars will first require a lot of down-to-Earth elbow grease, as NASA’s new 100-Year Starship project il-lustrates. The effort, to journey between stars in the 2100s, be-gan with a workshop and now is in the study phase.

NASA’s Ames Research Center and the Defense Advanced Re-search Projects Agency (DAR-PA) are collaborating on the $1 million 100-Year Starship Study, -an effort to take the first step in the next era of space ex-ploration.The study will scrutinize the business model needed to de-velop and mature technologies

needed to enable long-haul hu-man space treks a century from now. Kick-started by a strategic planning workshop in January, the project has brought together more than two dozen farsighted futurists, NASA specialists, sci-ence fiction writers, foundation aficionados and educators.But for the moment, put aside all those Vulcan mind melds and get a grip. Launching a truly interstellar human voyage is a goal that will require sustained investments of intellectual and financial capital from a variety of sources. “The year-long study aims to develop a construct that will in-centivize and facilitate private co-investment to ensure conti-nuity of the lengthy technologi-cal time horizon needed,” ac-cording to DARPA thinkers.

WASHINGTON -- In 2011, NASA began developing a heavy-lift rocket for the human exploration of deep space, helped foster a new era of com-mercial spaceflight and technol-ogy breakthroughs, fully utilized a newly complete space sta-tion, and made major discover-ies about the universe we live in, many of which will benefit life on Earth.

“The year truly marks the begin-ning of a new era in the human exploration of our solar system,” NASA Administrator Charles Bolden said. “Just as important are the ground-breaking dis-coveries about Earth and the universe, as well as our work to inspire and educate a new generation of scientists and en-gineers, and our efforts to keep the agency on a firm financial footing with its first clean audit in nine years. It’s been a land-mark year for the entire NASA team.”

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DISTANCEI N B E T W E E N

LIGHTS1957: The Soviet Union launches the first artificial satelite Sputnik 1 into space

1961: Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin is the first human to orbit the earth.

1962: John Glenn is the first American to orbit the earth.

1969: The first six american apollo missions land on the moon.

1970: Skylab, the first american space station is launched and used for space travel assitance and experiments.

299,792,458 metres per second186,282 miles per second

E = mc2

C =Light