<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Deep Space Gateway aims to serve as a stepping-stone to deep-space human exploration; constructing a station orbiting the Moon will enable astronauts to experience extended stays in space far from Earth. In 2015, NASA completed the design for its </span><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/sls/overview.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Space Launch System</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, which is scheduled for delivery in 2018. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The SLS will be the most powerful rocket ever built, and its purpose is to carry human explorers and scientific equipment as far as Mars. Standing at a towering 322 feet, the first stage of the SLS, called Exploration Mission-1, will generate an impressive 8.8 million pounds of thrust (the equivalent of 160,000 Corvette engines) upon liftoff, enabling it to carry more than three times the amount of mass than the space shuttle. </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">Sitting atop the SLS will be the </span><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/exploration/systems/orion/about/index.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Orion</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> spacecraft, which is the safest and most advanced manned spacecraft ever built. Initially test-launched in 2014, Orion will accompany EM-1 in a trip around the moon to test safety and critical systems, as well as return and reentry to Earth. The second SLS mission, Exploration Mission-2, will carry four astronauts past the moon.</span></p><p><span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="d44567c3086519ef351c4ad38679ad80"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/g0Z5aaW9INw?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Supplementing the American designing of the SLS and Orion will be the Russian-built </span><a href="http://www.russianspaceweb.com/angara5.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Angara-5 rocket</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, which is intended to replace the country’s 60-year-old </span><a href="http://www.russianspaceweb.com/proton.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Proton rocket program</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. The Angara-5 will deliver the crucial Russian-designed docking systems to the DSG. The two nations will also cooperatively plan manned missions to the lunar surface and eventually to Mars.</span></p><h3><b>Looking Toward The Future</b></h3><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">To </span><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/sep/27/russia-and-us-will-cooperate-to-build-moon-first-space-station"><span style="font-weight: 400;">send humans to Mars</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> by 2030, NASA and Roscosmos, as well as the European Space Agency and at least five other countries, plan to have astronauts living in </span><a href="https://www.space.com/38287-nasa-russia-deep-space-gateway-partnership.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">lunar orbit</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> by the 2020s. Having a space station in lunar orbit will save fuel and time for future manned missions to Mars and destinations into the outer solar system.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">At the International Astronomical Conference, Australia and the United Arab Emirates announced plans to develop their own space programs. Australia’s involvement in space began in 1967 — one of the first nations in the world to launch a satellite. In fact, the first TV images of Neil Armstrong’s historic moonwalk were received and broadcast by a NASA tracking station in Australia. Now, the country plans to invest in its own </span><a href="https://industry.gov.au/INDUSTRY/IndustrySectors/SPACE/Pages/default.aspx"><span style="font-weight: 400;">space program</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, which will create an </span><a href="http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/09/26/553713207/australia-says-it-is-launching-its-own-space-agency"><span style="font-weight: 400;">estimated</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> 11,700 jobs and generate $4.17 billion in economic growth.</span></p><p></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The UAE aims to </span><a href="https://www.space.com/38370-united-arab-emirates-human-spaceflight-program.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">send astronauts</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> from their nation into space in the early 2020s, though they would likely fly on Russian and Chinese spacecraft. Earlier this year, The UAE also unveiled their vision of building a permanent, fully-functioning city on Mars within the next century. </span><a href="http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-uae-space-20170531-story.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mars 2117</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> would be a “</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">multinational effort, which would set out to create a coalition of equals working together to fulfill a unified objective,”</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> Mars 2117 program director Saeed Gargawi said. Creating a sustainable settlement on Mars has its sociological challenges, too, and according to Mr. Gargawi, </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">“envisaging utopias is all very nice, but we have so far failed to define and operate a perfect society in thousands of years of modern human evolution. Is Mars a chance to restart a new kind of society? Yes, it is.” A human colony on Mars would focus on scientific research and technology, rendering Earth-based political complexities unnecessary.</span></p><h3><b>A Brief History Of US-Russian Cooperation In Space</b></h3><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The 1972 </span><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo17.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Apollo 17</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> mission brought the last humans to walk on the lunar surface, and to date, no other country besides the United States has landed humans on the Moon. Because of budget cuts and political fallout from the Watergate scandal, </span><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/canceled-apollo-missions/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">American interest</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> waned and lunar exploration lost its funding. Instead, resources were put into NASA launching its first space station, </span><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/skylab/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Skylab</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, in 1973. </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Following the cancellation of the three remaining Apollo missions (18, 19, 20), the United States and the (former) Soviet Union embarked on their first joint space venture, the </span><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo-soyuz/astp_mission.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Apollo-Soyuz Test Project</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, in 1975. The eight-day mission involved the docking of an American </span><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/nasa-knows/what-was-the-saturn-v-58.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Saturn V</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> rocket, which powered the Apollo programs, with a Soviet </span><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-the-soyuz-spacecraft-k-4"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Soyuz</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> spacecraft, while both were in low-Earth orbit. American astronauts and Soviet cosmonauts greeted each other, toured each other’s spacecrafts, ate lunch together and performed experiments. Unfortunately, Cold War tensions in subsequent years, however, strained joint US-Soviet trips into space. Though joint space exploration took a hiatus, the US and USSR still played off each other’s successful missions, such as NASA’s </span><a href="https://thesocialedgen.wpengine.com/technology-and-innovation/nasa-voyager-1-tweets-to-space/"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Voyager</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> and the Soviet Union’s </span><a href="https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/the-venera-program-when-russia-went-to-venus"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Venera</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> program, which successfully landed ten probes on Venus.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The </span><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/nasa-knows/what-is-the-space-shuttle-k4.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Space Shuttle</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> program was introduced in 1981 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan during the height of the Cold War. The space shuttle program flew 135 missions until it ended in 2011. Tragically, two of the shuttles, Challenger in 1986 and Columbia in 2003, exploded during take-off and reentry, killing all 14 astronauts between the two. During its </span><a href="https://www.space.com/12376-nasa-space-shuttle-program-facts-statistics.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">30-year life</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, the space shuttle program carried satellites, the Hubble Space Telescope, and 355 daring explorers from sixteen nations (49 women and 306 men). </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">On June 29, 1995, the first American space shuttle docked with Soviet space station </span><a href="https://history.nasa.gov/SP-4225/mir/mir.htm"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Mir</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">. From 1986-2001, Mir was the largest cooperative space mission between the United States and the Soviet Union. Having hosted 125 astronauts from 12 countries, Mir functioned as the bedrock for future international collaborative space research missions. Onboard, scientists performed biological experiments, including growing wheat in space for the first time, as well as conducting research on geophysics and human life in space. The space shuttles also carried into orbit the components for the International Space Station, which was constructed in space.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">The </span><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/overview/index.html"><span style="font-weight: 400;">International Space Station</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> is the most recent manned international space endeavor, with the United States and Russia providing most of the resources and personnel. In fact, Russian Soyuz rockets are exclusively used to transport people, supplies, and equipment to the ISS. Since the Apollo program ended, low-Earth orbit is the farthest humans have ventured into the cosmos. The ISS completed its 100,000</span><span style="font-weight: 400;">th</span><span style="font-weight: 400;"> orbit around Earth in 2016.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Launched in 1998, the ISS is the </span><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/facts-and-figures"><span style="font-weight: 400;">largest and most complex</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> international space project in history. One of the most important purposes of the ISS is to study the long-term effects of humans living in space for extended periods of time. NASA’s </span><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/hrp"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Human Research Program</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, for example, studies the effects space radiation has on human physiology. Traveling beyond Earth’s magnetosphere exposes astronauts to lethal cosmic rays from the Sun. Additionally, living in the zero-gravity environment of space, or the low-gravity environments of the Moon and Mars, has negative physiological </span><a href="https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/bodyinspace"><span style="font-weight: 400;">effects on the human body</span></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">, including bone loss, muscle wasting and immune system suppression. The most challenging aspect of living in space, however, is human behavior, as space travel requires prolonged periods of confinement, sustaining only a handful of people, with no way to escape.</span></p><p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Despite more than a half-century of political and social animosity between the United States and Russia, both nations are responsible for most of humanity’s space-related technologies. Manned exploration of the solar system not only strengthens scientific partnership but also requires setting aside political differences to reach two mutual goals: scientific truth and the long-term survival of the human race.</span></p>
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