Space technology has evolved in ever more fascinating ways over the years. This article looks at various innovative tech that has provided mankind with new ways to see and experience space.
Space tech is both fascinating and extremely expensive. Did you know that NASA’s current budget is approximately £21 billion a year? Just think of all the interesting technology that can be made with this amount of money. In this article, we’re going to look at several innovations in space tech that have made their mark over the years. Let’s find out more.
The Hubble Telescope
This piece of iconic tech has been around since 1998. It is raised over 500 km above the surface, making it able to avoid most types of atmospheric distortion. In addition to this, the Hubble Telescope has helped us determine many key facts about the universe, from the existence of planets, dark energy, quasars, and more. The telescope is composed of two supercomputers and several smaller systems. Altogether, they can send enormous amounts of data at an alarming speed.
Spacesuits
It’s fascinating to think that spacesuits weigh over 300 lbs and took $22 million to develop. These suits keep astronauts safe both inside modern rockets and when they’re outside moving around in dangerous temperatures. These suits provide them with both oxygen to breathe and water to drink during a spacewalk. It’s incredible how much a suit can protect astronauts from radiation in space, blinding light, and space dust. Nothing would be able to get done by humans in outer space without one of these.
Opportunity and Spirit
These are the names of successful Mars rovers that helped us to learn much more about the planet directly from its surface. It’s remarkable to think that we could control something so far away from Earth! Scientists developed them to conduct geological field experiments and to collect data on atmospheric content. Interestingly, not only have such rovers provided the world with clear and colorful images of Mars’s surface, but they’ve also detected the flow of water. This technology has been highly successful, and the rovers on Mars even exceeded their 90-day lifetime by several years! To date, they are NASA’s most successful pieces of technology.
The International Space Station
This is the most expensive space technology to have ever been developed. This space station weighs almost a million lbs, and it cost around $160 billion to develop. Passengers within it travel at an alarming 5 miles a second, meaning that one passenger could complete a full orbit of Earth in just 1.5 hours.
A total of six spaceships can be connected to the station at any one time. Even though it took a long time to make and a lot of money, development never stops. Maintenance of the space station takes even more time and effort. Onboard, approximately 50 high-tech computers control every aspect of the station, and over 3 million lines of computer code are required to control it from the ground. Thanks to this piece of remarkable technology, humans have been able to learn so much more about space and its effect on both wildlife and the human body. The site serves as a cutting-edge science laboratory, with experiments being conducted constantly.
Kepler Space Telescope
Last but not least, this piece of tech has found planets far outside our very own solar system. Right now, over 4 ½ thousand planets have been found using it. Most of these have been found by monitoring dimming stars as the planet would pass in front of them. Arguably one of this telescope’s greatest achievements is that it’s showing us just how diverse the universe is. Using it, we’ve discovered that sometimes a planet can even orbit multiple stars – something rather unknown to us before the creation of this telescope.
Iconic space technology
So, there you have it – some iconic pieces of space technology! It’s incredible how much space tach development has progressed over the years and how much mankind has achieved to date. Space exploration is a growing field, so we are likely to see more and more innovative technology in the future. Who knows what we will achieve next?
From reusable satellites to hi-tech radios – which piece of space technology are you most interested in and why? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
