Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA, has been a key player in the discoveries that have been made in space. NASA still works diligently to make progress. There are constant missions that continue to explore space and the science realm, private companies competing with
NASA, and budget concerns for the future.
There are numerous current missions, but some of the most interesting include: Cassini,
Juno, and MSL. These three missions are very intriguing. The Cassini-Huygens missions is one of the most popular missions in space. It has been a keystone of …show more content…
Juno will observe Jupiter’s gravity, magnetic fields, atmospheric dynamics, and evolution. It was launched on August 5th, 2011 and is planned to arrive to Jupiter in July of 2016 and will end in February 2018. Juno is planned to orbit for twenty months (Juno 1). The Mars Science Laboratory Mission Curiosity rover is another
astronomical mission in the history of science. It is the most technologically advanced rover ever built. It launched in November of 2011 and landed in August of 2012 on Mars. The rover carries the biggest, most advanced suite of instruments for scientific exploration. The purpose of
Curiosity is to analyze samples from soil and rocks to gain a better understanding of the chemical composition of the planet (Curiosity 1).
While NASA is constantly striving to make progress in science, there are also private companies looking to make discoveries as well. Companies like SpaceX and Sierra Nevada are doing things that NASA are not. SpaceX designs, manufactures, and launches advanced …show more content…
The company was founded in 2002 to revolutionize space technology. The goal is to finally enable people to be able to live on other planets. This company is currently building the
“Falcon Heavy” which will take off later this year, which will be the most powerful operational rocket in the world (Falcon Heavy 1). Sierra Nevada is a private company focused on solutions in telemedicine, navigation and guidance systems, threat detection and security commercial aviation, scientific research, and infrastructure protection among others (About Sierra Nevada
Corporation 1). Both companies work to gain knowledge about space and technology. They mainly work for private customers, rather than for the country, like NASA.
Explorations like these are not easy to pay for, there are constant budget updates and reforms to help guide these missions. In 2015, the Exploration department receive 4.3 million dollars, the International Space Station received approximately 3 million, Aeronautics received
650 million, Technology received approximately 600 million, and the Science department received 5.3 million (NASA FY 2016 Budget Estimates 1). Many argue that there should not be such large budgets consisting of public money for space explorations. There are so