Man has been curious about the stars and other celestial beings beyond earthfor thousands of years. In the 20th Century, our technology finally caught up with our curiosity and a series of exploration missions commenced. Our imaginations, however, raced forward as we tried to envision future space flights and the expansion of man across the solar system. NASA's Constellation program spun from the latter mentioned desire for human expansion. Its key focus was to send people to the moon for further exploration and to acquire knowledge of deep space survival, in terms of how to replenish resources from local materials. It was also to be used as the platform to send man to mars and possibly colonize the red planet. This program was, however, scraped as it was determined to be beyond budget and behind schedule. The Obama administration instead favored a new direction, one that involves more focus on developing new technologies and the commercialization of space travel. A near earth asteroid is to be the new target, rather than the moon. This change in destination stems from the need to learn more about asteroids. In case an asteroid is ever on a collision course with earth, we must be able to deter or destroy it. The ISS is also to be sustained up to 2020, but as NASA will no longer be able to transport the astronauts, commercial or Russian rockets will be used. As back up, however, NASA is developing the Space Shuttle System that should be functional by 2017. Tourism is therefore set to take off, and as competition and the number of vehicles increase, the trips could go down in price. Currently, there are a number of companies offering this service, including Virgin Galactic. The trips themselves are categorized as either suborbital or orbital. The former refers to trips that reach the edge of space, 100km (60miles) above sea level, where passengers will experience micro gravity and glimpse our planet's edge. Orbital trips would take passengers into to low-earth orbit as they visit the ISS. These trips are more expensive and currently only seven millionaires have footed the bill. China has also announced plans to have in orbit a 60 ton multi-module station by 2020. Robotic precursor missions to near earth asteroids by JAXA, ESA, CSA and Roscosmos have also been planned to take place before 2020. The first manned crew to a near earth asteroid is set to be launched in 2028, should the technology in development bear fruit. Lagrange points will also be destinations of interest in the next decade. These are points where the gravitational pull of one object is completely balanced by another. This will allow craft to sit in place for extended periods while consuming relatively little energy. They will be used to study how astronauts cope outside earth's protective magnetosphere. Future space flight is therefore geared toward human exploration. Criticism and opposition suggest focus shifts to robotic missions, however, as these often yield more scientific breakthroughs and offer more answers to the origin of our solar system. Interplanetary flight is a prospect to look forward to, though, as it is mankind's ultimate goal.
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