The dream of traveling into space
- Paper number
IAC-09.E1.3.6
- Author
Dr. José Bezerra Pessoa-Filho, CTA-IAE, Brazil
- Year
2009
- Abstract
The Brazilian Space Agency (AEB) has an outreach program directed to teachers and students. The goal is to use the natural interest of the youth by the space activities to make the classes more challenging and fun. The proposed paper presents an effort conducted along the past five years to present the Space Age not as an isolated event, but as a consequence of old dream brought about by the development of science during the previous centuries. We began by showing that the dream of traveling into space was born with our civilization. One of the first times this dream was fulfilled was in 165 when Lucian of Samosata wrote his fictional story called Verae historiae. Science came into play with the end the Medieval Age. Nicolaus Copernicus defended his view that Earth orbited the Sun. Four hundred years ago Johannes Kepler published his three laws. At the same year Galileo started his observations of the moon, and one year later of Jupiter. At the same year Galileo died, another genius came into this world. His name was Isaac Newton, who gave lots of contributions to our civilization. In an epoch in which the horse was the fastest way for moving around, Newton envisioned that if put at a speed of 28.000 km/h, above the atmosphere, a body would orbit Earth forever. In 1865 and 1870 we made another trip to the moon, but still a fictional one. The French writer Julius Verne was the genius behind such a trip. Based upon the scientific knowledge available at his time the father of the science-fiction wrote From the Earth to the Moon (1865) and Around the Moon (1870). It would take one more century and other ingenious minds for science fiction to become science fact. Following World War II, we had the Cold War, which led to the Space Race, between Americans and Soviets. The moon was chosen as the prize to be conquered and the accumulated knowledge available at that time took us there. It was forty years ago when we set foot on the moon for the joy and glory of our entire civilization. The trip to the moon opened the doors of the Universe to us. Even before getting there we had discovered the Van Allen’s belt (Explorer 1, 1958), photographed the dark side of the moon (Luna 3, 1959), launched a satellite to take thousands of pictures of Earth from Space (Tiros, 1960), made the first live television broadcast between the USA and France (Telstar, 1962) and visited our neighbors Venus (Venera 1, 1961) and Mars (Mariner 4, 1965), among others. It was December of 1968 when a picture taken by the Apollo 8 astronauts changed the way we saw ourselves and our planet. As it was stated by one of the astronauts of Apollo 8 “We came a long way to explore the moon and we discovered the Earth.” Since then we woke up to the necessity for caring for our home. As result of such discoveries we have change our way of living forever. But the trip went on and in no other place science fiction meets reality as in the Voyager mission. Since 1977, when they were launched, they traveled over 15 billion kilometers. A picture taken at a distance of 6 billion kilometers offered us a new perspective of the fragility of our home and on the necessity of taking very good care of it. The dream goes on . . .
- Abstract document
- Manuscript document
IAC-09.E1.3.6.pdf (🔒 authorized access only).
To get the manuscript, please contact IAF Secretariat.