{"id":26762,"date":"2018-11-21T10:01:21","date_gmt":"2018-11-21T10:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/?p=26762"},"modified":"2018-11-21T10:01:21","modified_gmt":"2018-11-21T10:01:21","slug":"to-the-moon-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/to-the-moon-and-beyond\/","title":{"rendered":"To the Moon and beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_26763\" style=\"width: 2410px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-26763\" class=\"size-full wp-image-26763\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/64\/2018\/11\/american-flag-astronaut-astronomy-39896.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2400\" height=\"2400\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-26763\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">CC0 licensced image found on Pexels<\/p><\/div>\n<p><b>The National Aeronautics and Space Administration<\/b><b> (NASA) announced plans to set up camp on Earth\u2019s Moon to set the stage for interplanetary space travel. <\/b><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">With a 2018 budget reported to be over $20 billion, of which close to $8 billion would go towards exploration, planetary science, and aeronautics \u2013 the question is often asked, is it worth all this money <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">just<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to go to the moon? <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The feel-good video published on November 16<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">th<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> has garnered over 1.2 million views on YouTube and reignited the curiosity within human nature to explore and go beyond what is already known.<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We&#39;re returning to the Moon, preparing to go beyond to Mars. We are going. We are NASA. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/y24AaicGRy\">pic.twitter.com\/y24AaicGRy<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; NASA (@NASA) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NASA\/status\/1063824485621645312?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 17, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">All this money that gets invested into NASA flows back through society in the form of space-age technologies that we take for granted every day. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Examples range from improved tires used on vehicles and better roads to use them on, LED lights and the first portable laptop, modern home insulation and wireless headsets, to getting that perfect night\u2019s sleep on your memory foam mattress \u2013 or if you can\u2019t afford one like me, a memory foam pillow. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/spinoff.nasa.gov\/Spinoff2008\/tech_benefits.html\">list really does go on<\/a>, but it should be clear that investing in science really does pay dividends. With our rapid technological advances over the last century, the world around us in changing at an ever-increasing rate. Many ponder on what the world may look like 100 years from now, and not all of them are a pretty sight. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Global Challenges Foundation released their <a href=\"https:\/\/api.globalchallenges.org\/static\/files\/GCF-Annual-report-2018.pdf\">Global Catastrophic Risks report of 2018<\/a>, which detailed some of the more pessimistic predictions for the future of humanity. Such grim predictions include the abuse of nuclear, chemical and biological weaponry, catastrophic climate change, asteroid impacts and many more \u2013 and in the event of such disasters, humans may need to relocate elsewhere.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">NASA is a big name, with big money, being run by some of the biggest brains the world has to offer. If someone or something were able to save the world in the event of such disasters, NASA naturally springs to mind. Building a moon-base which could be used to launch exploration deeper into our solar system, is the first large step of many towards the science fiction \u00a0towards creating a sustainable society outside of Earth\u2019s atmosphere. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Everyone\u2019s favourite science guy, Bill Nye, chimes in on the idea of humans terraforming other planets so that we can inhabit them in an <a href=\"https:\/\/eu.usatoday.com\/story\/tech\/science\/2018\/11\/19\/bill-nye-mars-were-not-going-live-there-make-like-earth\/1905447002\/?fbclid=IwAR2MpBxvlofatgi_XurEwq9gTXjOcxhvU-fCAcvNN4RGQiIbv5m01P8it1Q\">interview with USA TODAY<\/a>, \u201cWe can\u2019t even take care of this planet where we live\u201d. Nye keeps the topic grounded towards more realistic scope of NASA\u2019s aims, being space exploration rather than colonisation. With this, Nye still retains hope for exciting discoveries on the horizon, \u201c<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">I want to find evidence of life on another world in my lifetime, so\u00a0Mars in the next logical place to look\u201d. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">If we manage to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">find<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> life on another planet, how much closer would this get us to being able to <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">bring<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> life to another planet?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">For more articles about space exploration, check out:<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"><br \/>\n<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/one-way-ticket-to-mars\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">http:\/\/thevoiceoflondon.co.uk\/one-way-ticket-to-mars\/<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><b>Words: Jeremy Ainsworth | Subbing: Peony Hirwani<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced plans to set up camp on Earth\u2019s Moon to set the stage for interplanetary space travel. With a 2018 budget reported to be over $20 billion, of&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":476,"featured_media":26763,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[82],"tags":[4368],"class_list":["post-26762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-nasa"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/476"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/thevoiceoflondon\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}