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SPACE EXPLORATION term paper |
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Entering the twenty-first century, we have an unimaginable array of technology and a generation of young people schooled in these technologies. Three decades ago people placed six flags on the Moon. Our automatic space stations reached almost all planets of Solar System. Today we no longer try for new space achievements; instead we celebrate the anniversaries of the past. Our work is unfinished.I have read a large amount of books and magazines, in addition to the science books. People have been preparing to land on Mars, but because of some obstacles, we have not realizedit yet.If we compare technologies of 1960s and 1970s, when major achievements in space exploration were made and technologies we have today, we might be surprised. The Apollo Lu-; nar Module had a computer in it, as we all know. The Lunar Module computer had 4,096 bytes of erasable storage. Current processors reach over 3000MHz, hundreds times more that it was that time and modern personal computers often have over 500 million bytes of erasable storage, to say nothing of modern fixed storage. 30 years of advancement have given us the ability to do even more in rocketry and computing and everywhere else. Our future achievements should not be dwarfed by our past achievements.We need to explore space, using a combination of automated probes and manned missions. Humans need to explore space, because by not doing so, we are denying our creative and curious nature.
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