1. We want to colonize Mars. Seriously.
In December, the Mars One foundation announced that 200,000 people had applied for a mission to colonize the red planet, and 1,058 of them had advanced to the next level of screening. These people don’t seem troubled by the prospect that there will be no running to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. It is a one-way ticket. The foundation plans to launch a manned mission to the planet in 2024. The colonists will "begin human life" on Mars in 2025, according to the site.
2. We can’t look away from the International Space Station, even when things get gnarly.
In July, Italian astronaut Luca Parmitano nearly drowned when his helmet unexpectedly filled with water during a spacewalk. Scientists referred to the incident as a “suit anomaly,” and Parmitano lived to tell the tale.3. We love the mind-blowing visuals.
Dashboard cameras caught raw footage of a meteor streaking across the Russian sky in February, and soon the video was viral.4. Space gives – and keeps giving.
As with any government agency, NASA can be dissected from a political perspective. Given the needs on Earth, should we keep shelling out billions for Tonka trucks on Mars? But put another way: Given the educational potential, can we afford to forgo the vast opportunities of space? Let us scrape the surface of planetary dust from this year’s news:
5. Face it. We aren’t alone.
During a November conference at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Moffet Field, Calif., scientists announced that 70 percent of the stars observed by the Kepler Space Telescope show planets. Not only that, but 1 in 5 is in the habitable zone -- the distance from a star where an orbiting planet’s surface temperature might be suitable for water.
Not long after, Chris Hadfield, former commander of the International Space Station and a guitar-strumming social media phenomenon, put it in perspective in an interview on radio station WNYC’s The Brian Lehrer Show: "I don't know of any astronauts who think we're alone in the universe."
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