Introduction
Man has explored land and water and discovered countless things, and still now has been carrying on this action. But space is always a never-ending attraction to the mankind. Since the discovery of science, man has been making the use of his science to explore the space in order to satisfy his curiosity. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, this is the most innovative field of study and research that lures and makes the human mind curiously jump into the vicious circle of the vast universe. Countless participants and students are enthusiastically joining the branch of Space Science and Technology and contributing their intelligence towards the goal of discovering more and more of the universe. This demands the expertise in physics, aeronautics, engineering, etc. Space exploration highly demands the corroborative efforts from all the fields to put in their best efforts for an effective result. Moreover, the space science is very lucrative, and has the chance of winning name and fame with the successful experiments. Petty knowledge we have gained about the space, while the vast unknown is lying in front of generations to come. These unknown and unexplored things also allure the inventors. The lure of space has the greatest opportunity to answer many unknown questions regarding the universe as well as the resolutions of major concerns of human beings, and to feel pride not only for the nation, also for the mankind.
Space Exploration
Space is no doubt the storehouse of knowledge on facts and fictions. So space exploration has infinite opportunity to study, prepare hypothesis, carry out experiments and draw rational inferences that may be prospectively help mankind in ways. We do not know whether the space exploration may discover some other life forms primitive to earth.
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, we only come to know that the universe consists of many a galaxy, and the galaxy that we belong to is the Milky Way. We are in a system of the universe; we call it the solar system and we have not yet completely know about this system. Our exploration and research works are going on as usual with the aim of gathering more and more information about our neighbouring planets. Let us know only the brief highlights of the most significant research and exploration records:
1. 21 August 1957: First Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM)—R7 Semyorka; USSR
2. 4 October 1957: First artificial satellite—First signals from space Sputnik 1; USSR
3. 3 November 1957: First animal in orbit (dog Laika)—Sputnik 2; USSR
4. 17 February 1959: First weather satellite—Vanguard 2-NASA (NRL) 1; US
5. 7 August 1959: First photograph of Earth from orbit—Explorer 6-NASA; US
6. 14 September 1959: First impact into another celestial body (Moon)— Luna 2; USSR
7. 12 April 1961: First human spaceflight (Yuri Gagarin)—First orbital flight of a manned vehicle—Vostok 1; USSR
8. 16 June 1963: First woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova)—First civilian in space; Vostok 6– USSR
9. 20 July 1969: First man to step on the lunar surface (Neil Armstrong)— Apollo 11; USA
10. 1971: First space station—SALYUT1
11. November 1998: First International Space Station; Russian Zarya; USSR
12. 20 September 2004: Three-stage Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV); India
13. 21 October 2008: Chandrayaan-1: The Lunar Mission; Included a lunar orbiter and an Impactor; India (ISRO)
14. 5 November 2013: Mangalayan: Explore and observe Mars surface features, morphology
Expectation on the Existence of Life beyond Earth Human curiosity and imagination is the founding father of science and technology. This curiosity can one day discover a lot of unknown things in the universe. As its intuition has been expecting life beyond earth is possible for ages, there must be something beyond our earth. We expect to be some form of life on Mars, but the matters remain unsure with regard to its practical existence. Based on our knowledge on solar system, we have only found some vague phenomenal evidences of life expectancy on Mars. Only earth has a surface, water and the gravitational force probably due to its iron content in its core which has a magnetic effect, while the rest of the planets have only a surface. The possibility of the existence and survival of life on earth is only for the biosphere––a combination of atmosphere, lithosphere and hydrosphere.
By the command of our science and technology, we are always curious to know life beyond earth and understand them. Maybe our science is a mere child to discover the unknown by exploring different galaxies far beyond the reach of our science. The living forms may vary, in terms of kinds and species. But they may be older or younger than ours, more or less civilised than ours.
Unidentified Flying Objects
In the night sky or in some cases by day, some unidentified flying objects (UFO) have been seen in various places on earth. These facts are still under discussion whether they have any real existence, and if they really have, what they are. As these ignite the mythical ideas and stories told by the older ones, so inspire the space research works with the ray of hope for the existence of some kinds of lifeforms in the solar system or beyond it. Thus, we are fond of imagining that maybe those are the different form of living beings and have invented some different types of space vehicles and are exploring we are doing. Whatever these are, either myth or reality, will soon come to light by the command of our science and technology.
Importance of Space Exploration
Space exploration has added an extra-edge in improving our lives on earth. Our forecast and foreseeing will be realistic based on our factual knowledge on the space and the happenings in the universe. We can combat many natural calamities effectively by knowing real reasons, and also can be safe gathering knowledge prior to the phenomenon. Our space research also focus on the following fields of studies:
i. Transmission and broadcasting of television channels
ii. Telephone calls, especially the mobile phone network, signalling—subscriber trunk dialling (STD) and international subscriber dialling (ISD)
iii. Weather forecast
iv. The frequency of Radioactivity used for frequency modulation (FM) radio signals
v. Marine industry—used for steering the boat using global positioning system.
Space exploration widens our expectation for gaining much more benefits on being successful in the endeavours by different researches. Space science and technology is very lucrative as well as accolade-achiever. So, most of the countries are greatly interested to carry out research works in this field of technology with the objective of gaining benefits and name and fame as well. We are not far away when our research and exploration will help improving the condition of our life on earth by various means and discovering the unknown to a great extent.
Conclusion
The current trends of research works and explorations on space and wide culture of space science are really a praise worthy adventurous endeavour. Our inquisitiveness fosters, our endeavours, are leading us far and far in the space. In course of these endeavours, we must not be indifferent to the adverse impacts on the life forms and environment on earth. We must follow sustainable methods while using the fuels for combustion and conducting other experimental works. We have to go on checking simultaneously the pollution index and other measures for controlling pollution. Needless to say, these innovative works have the potential to provide us knowledge to fill our curiosity, pleasure and a happy life in near future