Space Travel

by Thomas French

Submitted : Spring 2014

Space travel began with the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, and almost every year between then and 2001 an object of some form has been launched into space. Overall, space is a fairly empty place, but we must consider the possibility that other objects may get in the way of the spacecraft that we have launched from Earth. Sometime in the near future it may be possible to have multiple spacecraft launches, which if not calculated correctly, could collide with one another. If our spacecraft(s) get damaged after launch it may be near impossible to fix them to continue their mission, or have the need to abandon the mission all together, which would result in a massive waste in both time and money. However, it is possible to calculate the trajectory of all of the objects in space beforehand, which allows a spacecraft to be launched into space while avoiding collisions.

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