2 minute read
Letter from the Editor
Xplore Space
World Space Club Magazine
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Letter from the Editor:
If you’re a teenager like me, you've probably spent your life taking for granted that there are always astronauts in orbit on board the ISS, and cool rovers like Curiosity driving about on Mars, all whilst awesome probes embark on exotic journeys to the planets, to our sun, and out of the solar system entirely. But was it always like that?
The simple and obvious answer is no.
We live in a golden age of space activity, but the space age that we all take for granted is actually just in its infancy.
In 1933, the oldest still-functioning space society in the world, the British Interplanetary Society, opened its doors for the first time when a group of enthusiasts like us started asking how to make space travel a reality. At that time, they and their ideas were regarded by most people as rather strange and far-fetched to say the least! That was 24 years before Sputnik, and 36 years before the Moon landing. Even Von Braun's V2 hadn't been seen or heard of at that point. But in 1933, in Germany, Von Braun was alive, and he was dreaming of the Moon and Mars, just like in England Arthur C. Clarke and the members of BIS were, and in the US Robert Goddard was. At that point, space engineers and and enthusiasts were not taken seriously by most people, but after World War II, the Soviets with Sergei Koroliev would change that. Over the years more and more people would be added to the list of both dreamers and space solution finders.
And so now, here we are today, 50 years after what many consider to be humanity’s greatest achievement, the Apollo Lunar landings, and we’re still pushing our boundaries ever further into space.
We currently sit on the verge of once more returning humans to the Moon, this time with permanently crewed Lunar bases, and then pushing onwards to the Red Planet.
These are exciting times to be a teenager who wants to spend their life studying spaceflight and working on space missions.
Or perhaps, even going into space.
And so naturally, this edition of Xplore Space Magazine will focus on the future. We will be exploring some of the plans, past and present, to explore Mars, as well as both the organisations, and the people, that will actually be getting us there.
