It was too long time ago that mankind did something extremely bold, so extreme that it managed to stop wars and bring everyone together for one single humanitarian moment. The man on the Moon on 21st July 1969. But what happened to the hype and the glory of exploring space? War and military budget had top priorities for the country that set foot on our satellite. The US slowly and silently stepped back from what could have been now the century of space colonization. The last 40 years have been doomed with more war and global instabilities that lead to major setbacks and cuts in NASA resources, especially precious funds that were essential to the Moon race in the 60s.
Since then we hopelessly thought man would go back to the Moon or even set foot on Mars, but we are still waiting for that as Unites States' President Obama announced an alt on the space program for budget reasons. I guess bailing out faulty and criminal banks has an higher priority than science and culture for the whole humanity.
Maybe we could already have built the next generation of spaceships to reach other planets in our solar system, plans and projects have been around for decades to improve the space exploration with advanced crafts. Some of them found minor application, but the list isn't short.
Starting from the ION Drive to fuel manned and unmanned missions so we can establish long hauls to other planets to probe them with artificial satellites orbiting constantly and providing us with informations. The ION Drive is built on purpose for space travel because it can provide constant acceleration working on the principle of electrically charged atoms. The probe Deep Space 1 uses this drive and proved also its amazing efficiency beyond estimates. Unfortunately it can't be used to replace conventional rockets that lift off from Earth because of their low thrust. This engine is much fitted for space travel.
Another possible solution are the solar sails that use solar winds to accelerate up to 90 km per second. They can be used for launching probes towards other stars to study them and to map with more accuracy other solar systems. The sails cannot provide a fast and sudden acceleration at the beginning, however they accelerate constantly to speed 10 times the Shuttle. Japanese tests were successful in 2004 depleting the sails of an experimental craft while in orbit.
In the 50s and 60s the Unites States started the Orion project in order to build a nuclear powered vessel based on the fission principle. This involves the ship to be pushed by a series of nuclear detonations using its energy to propel it forward to destination. Conventional solid rockets can transport the craft off orbit into a safe distance to start the reactor, but having a manned mission on this type of project can seriously be harmful due to the lethal radiations; this is why NASA thinks it's better to use nuclear fuel for expeditions without any human being on board. The other side of the theory is based instead on nuclear fusion, the same process that happens inside the stars, weaving its engine power millions of time greater than the Space Shuttle. The only problem is that the perfect combustible is very scarce on planet Earth, Helium 3 has been detected in large quantities on our Moon, that's why going back on it can represent a major jump towards new technologies that will open new frontiers of science.
If the destination for humanity it to send people toward our nearest star Alpha Centauri, then the anti-matter ticket is what we need. The process that fuels this hypothetical spaceship is based on the theory of matter colliding against its counterpart, the anti-matter. This is the main principle where the vessels of the television series Start Trek are based upon. It can give us a tremendous amount of energy that will shorted our trips to destinations giving the possibility to astronauts to arrive in reasonable times, this means that not only we can travel withing minutes between our planets, but we can actually reach and set foot on other planets in other solar systems with the purpose of colonizing them to expand our civilization.
Another brilliant idea to move people and material from the surface of a planet into space it the construction of the space elevator that can reach the level of a geostationary orbit. An elevator riding on a cable guide made of carbon nano-tubes will improve its performance and reduce extra weights as well as increasing the resistance of the structure. The purpose of this invention is to use a simple idea to provide space station in orbit the resources needed and the replacement crew that periodically changes. Imagine the space elevator being built on Earth, on the Moon and on Mars to facilitate space travel and avoiding the use of costly space crafts like the former shuttle and the Russian capsule Soyuz. Mining operations will be facilitated to the point of creating a space commerce beyond our planet.
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