Space Exploration - Progress or not?

So NASA has shelved the shuttle and funding is being reassessed for the latest proposals for manned missions to Mars and the Moon. We could be forgiven for feeling that yet another chance has been missed and that future Space Exploration is in jeopardy. Indeed we seem to be going backwards... Or are we?

Actually I think the truth is very different. You only have to look behind the scenes. Today we have the first private companies entering commercial space activities. There is tourism, in the form of Virgin Galactic and others and a whole industry growing for future satellite and transportation development. These will and are already interacting with the national space organisations of countries throughout the world. And now the Chinese, the Russians, NASA, the European Space Agency to name but a few are beginning to work together to make the future planned missions to Mars and to the Moon more viable; with plans afoot to land on asteroids and comets.

But we are hindered as always by distance and time. Even our fastest space craft are painfully slow, when you consider the wider picture. How will we ever reach the stars? Of course, there are numerous propulsion methods, which have been examined to a greater or lesser degree and have been inevitably cast aside because of cost. And yet the reasons for space exploration in the first place or more credible than ever. The unmanned space probes that now populate the solar system as a whole are constantly relaying new images and new findings about this planet, this moon, this rock. The possibility that commercially the exploration of space in terms of mineral and ore extraction could become a viable and profitable proposition. The arguments are all there.

So can it happen, will it happen? Isn't it ironic that anti-matter is often muted as the means to deliver us beyond the stars. The problem has always been cost and the limitations in extraction of the antimatter. But now, we have detected a layer of antimatter in own our own backyard, surrounding Earth, like an unseen planetary ring. The resources are there. The technology just needs to catch up. And it will!

Of course, new antimatter propulsion systems will not take us beyond the speed of light, because Einstein told us this is impossible. Not so it would seem as the scientists at CERN have recently discovered. Yes, this has still to be proven with any certainty... but I am sure it will only be a matter of time before it is.

We are living in exiting times in terms of space exploration. Investment is troubled right now, but as technologies slowly develop and realisation plays its part. It will all come together and we will reach beyond the stars. I think you can safely say that yes, progress has been made...