To celebrate 25 years of covering countless advances in space science and astronomy, Space.com hosted live what can be called a panel to discuss some of the most influential discoveries and those yet to come.
Joining Space.com’s Editor-in-Chief, Tariq Malik, who moderated the discussion, were three panelists, including Dr. Sara Seager, astronomer and professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Dr. John Mulchaey, Carnegie Observatories director in charge. the Giant Magellan telescope, and Dr. Tom Marshburn, Sierra Space’s chief medical officer and former NASA astronaut and three-time astronaut.
The panel, held on July 17 in honor of Space.com’s 25th anniversary, focused on achievements in the fields of exoplanet research, which seek lifeobserving the early universe and human spaceflight, as well as new technologies that could open more doors to discovery.
“We now know about 1,000 planets nearby starsand there must be trillions of them in our galaxy alone,” Seager said. “Now that’s just a fact. [of] to move that from science fiction to scientific fact is a significant achievement of the last quarter of a century.”
In the last two and a half decades, we have also made great strides in forward research the universerevealing the first stars and galaxies that were formed after the Big Bang, which, according to Mulchaey, is one of the greatest achievements of astronomy.
It is “a field that is changing every day now and James Webb Space Telescope. It’s very exciting,” Mulchaey said. “25 years ago, I was just out of school and we only knew about things that we could see maybe 10 billion years at a time, and now we are almost back to the Big Bang. ”
Mulchaey oversees Carnegie’s main campus in Pasadena as well as The Observatories Las Campanas, Chile, where The Large Magellan Telescope – the world’s largest optical telescope – is under construction. Expected to become operational in the early 2030s, the telescope will explore the distant universe and look for signs of life beyond Earth.
Human space flight has also changed a lot in the last 25 years, from the Space Shuttle era, to the evolution and permanent residence of International Space Station and SpaceX, which launched a commercial spacecraft.
“Finding out how humans can continue to live in space [for] six months to a year… I think that’s one of the biggest things; The barrier we’ve broken will enable us to spend many years in space,” Marshburn, who flew on three space flights, including STS-127, Expedition 34/35 and Expedition 66/67 as part of SpaceX Crew-3, and now works for the commercial space company Sierra Space, said during the panel. He later explained how the private sector is using “advanced innovation, efficiency and speed to ensure that we can continue with everything we need to do in the lower part of the Earth in enable NASA to continue its exploration work.”
Sierra Space Dream Chaser The spacecraft is scheduled to launch later this year, expanding the ability to transport cargo to the space station. The company also works in an air-conditioned residential area, which can provide greater access to space.
“Several companies are coming together to provide this kind of space for low Earth orbit,” Marshburn said, adding that the goal is to “get into lunar orbit and have space in lunar space; including the means of exiting the vehicle into the area [such as] tunnels, so we can start creating a site center. ”
And, with an increasing number of autonomous space plane companies that can help scale production and technology startups, Seager says it’s an opportunity to focus on a small scale that can be accomplished in a small amount of time.
“It would be a huge game changer,” Seager said. “Instead of waiting 20, 30, 40 years for your mission, to have many small tasks constantly that build on each other, or if you are already dead, they go on a new path.”
However, this requires a “paradigm shift,” according to Mulchaey. The panelists agreed that more focused projects would be useful and expected to see more of them in the future as “supplements” to NASA’s larger projects.
The panelists also discussed the future of artificial intelligence, how to better search for signs of life, the best use of space and what everyone hopes to see achieved in the next 25 years.
Visit Space.com to read our reviews A total of 25 years.
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