Month: November 2011

New York, 19 nov (EFE).-the future of space travel stars in the new exhibition of the Museum of history Natural New York, which recreates through simulators, models and real objects what coming advances in human in this matter.

“What this exhibition shows is that space exploration is just beginning, that there are fabulous to do things,” he told Efe the person in charge of Astrophysics at the Museum and curator of the exhibition, Michael Shara.

The exhibition can be visited from today until August 12 under the title “beyond planet Earth: the future of space exploration”, runs through some of these fabulous developments, like the possibility to make space tourism or colonizing Mars, also called Planet red.

Until a few years ago, these space missions only were part of the film and science fiction literature, but nowadays are various project Center scientists.

Is the case with the plan to colonize Mars, which will be a little closer before the American Aerospace Agency (NASA) send in 2012 to that planet his robot Explorer “Curiosity”, an important step to ensure that the human can establish themselves there in the future.

The sample hosts a replica in real size of this robot, as well as several simulators interactive to give visitors an idea of what will be exploring the red planet and turn it into a place more livable.

“In the future we can go to Mars and begin to do so in a place closest to the Earth,” said Shara, who added that “a cold world, lifeless will become a place that can support crops, animals and human beings, which will be a support to us”.

Through a detailed demo, the New York Museum also deals with the project to build a base at the pole of the Moon, because there is a point in this place that offers almost constant daylight hours and enough to generate electricity.

Thus, the world that they imagined filmmakers such as Georges Méliès (1861-1938), director of “journey to the Moon” (1902), is increasingly less science fiction.

Méliès showed an inhabited Moon that received the impact of a rocket con a few explorers on board, whereas now the New York Museum discovers its visitors a prototype of housing that may one day serve as home to the astronauts on the moon.

In addition, the exhibition includes a reproduction of what would become a “lunar elevator”, a structure that would serve to facilitate the transportation of human beings and goods between the lunar base and the Earth.

Other sections of the exhibition dealt with the explorations of one of the moons of Jupiter, which according to scholars might host life, or which are out of the solar system and stars have planets themselves.

While these projects are increasingly as most likely, the responsible for el museo recalled that they continue to rely on large investments, what added difficulties.

“If Russia, United States, Europe and Japan join instead of investing in projects separately, we could go to Mars in twenty years, but if they do not we take 50 or even 100 years,” estimated Shera.

In this line, the sample emphasizes not only the appeal of the travel into space, but also the importance of collaboration in such projects, “something that allowed to be built for example the international space station”, said Shera.

Another aspect that explores the sample are space tourist travel, through vehicles such as aircraft from 2009 is developing the company Virgin Galactic, which plans to offer flights about 100 kilometers above the Earth at a price of $ 200,000 for passage.

The Museum also devotes a section of the exhibition space missions historical as the launch of the satellite Sputnik in 1958, the first voyage of man in space, which made the Russian Yuri Gagarin (1934-1968) in 1961, or the launch in 1990 for the Hubble Space Telescope, which still operates.

Photo courtesy of the Museum of history Natural New York which is one of the objects which is part of the new exhibition “beyond of the planet Earth: the future of space exploration”. EFE/file