Why The Exploration Of Space Should Still Matter

Once it was the moon. Today Mars is the holy grail of space exploration. In the coming months three missions, one from the US, one from Taiwan and one from the UAE will be approaching and/or landing on Mars. Next year Russia, Japan, and India have missions planned. It could get crowded up there! 

And while NASA, the President and Congress may be less enamored by space than by that latest social media site, there is amazing work being done at NASA. Also the private sector, in the form of wayfarers such as Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Richard Branson are giving the government some competition. 

All of this is part of the history of space and its future exploration. This includes an amazing mission planned to Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter in 2024. 

Giving us a telescopic view of all of this is David W. Brown in his new book The Mission: A True Story

My conversation with David W. Brown:

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An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth

For those of us that grew up in the 60’s, space was the final frontier. It was the most future oriented thing one could do. JFK found no better way to project into the future than to promise to put men on the Moon by the end of the decade.

Today, as a society, we seem to have lost that wonder. Instead, the future consists of the latest social media; Twitter, Facebook, youtube. Perhaps they all portend to a future we can’t yet imagine?

Few people have understood or been part of both of these worlds...The world of space travel and all that it represents, and the contemporary world of social media.

Veteran astronaut Col. Chris Hadfield has straddled both.  And he’s done it in ways that inspire all of us to fearlessly grasp the future.

My conversation with Col. Chris Hadfield about his memoir An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything.