Outer Space? A Busy Place!

"These are exciting times. It is always fun to look skyward to dream about the future. In today's environment however, when everything looks to mucked up down here on Earth, dreaming about space travel is even better."

Yes, we are having a pandemic. Yes, there is social unrest all over the place. Yes, in four months, we will have one of the most important elections in our history. With all that being said, mankind's itch and yearning to explore, will get a major scratch this month. Three different countries will be launching rockets towards Mars. In one month! In anyone's book, that should be a big flipping deal!

Who are the three countries? The USA for one. I know, for us, launching anything towards Mars is kind of old hat by now. We are going to launch a new Mars rover to the red planet on July 30th. Hopefully, nothing will happen to delay it (again), as we have a narrow window this month of excellent planet alignment. Assuming it is successful, this will just be another notch in the belt of NASA, for an upcoming manned flight to Mars.

Our new space wannabe (China), is also going to send an orbiter AND a rover to Mars this month. Their aspirations are very similar to ours. Get folks to the Moon to explore and mine, and set the table for an eventual manned flight to Mars. Their plans are to make a July 23rd launch date. I hope both the Chinese rover and our rover have collision insurance!

I saved the most fascinating country for last. The UAE (yes, the oil baron UAE) is launching its first Mars orbiter on March 14th. This is a bit bite for a little country. And why in the world would a country like UAE want to go to Mars? Good question. The UAE is trying to wean off of being totally immersed in the oil business, and becoming more tech savvy. They will launch this rocket from Japan, and if everything goes okay, they will be in "the club".

This is just the start of what is to come this decade. Russia, India, Israel, Japan and the EU all want into "the club". Which club? The Moon AND Mars club. Soon, the ISS will be so yesterday. And of course, besides NASA, we also have Space X and Blue Horizon. If you think Elon Musk is sitting on his hands right now, watching the world go by - he is not. He is still actively populating the Heavens with Starlink satellites, and is pushing the development of Starship for the Moon and Mars missions.

These are exciting times. It is always fun to look skyward to dream about the future. In today's environment however, when everything looks so mucked up down here on Earth, dreaming about space travel is even better. As Buzz Lightyear would say, we are headed to "Infinity and beyond!"