Introduction Would you like to visit another world If you went there would you want to stay and call it home If so you’d be like people long ago who left their homelands to settle the wide open spaces of North America then called the New World deadly frontier where even air to breathe has to be specially manufactured challenges of survival and become the first humans to be space colonists Read on for more However in the future we may meet the many But outer space is a very different and mostly www crabtreebooks com By the 2030s or perhaps before the first humans could land on the planet Mars above By that time there could also be a busy colony on the Moon
Contents Leaving Earth School for Space Worlds to Colonize Builders on the Moon Lunar Science Life on the Moon Destination Mars The First Base on Mars The new Martians Colony in the Clouds Asteroid Miners Humans across the Solar System To the Stars Glossary Websites and Further Information Index and About the Author 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 31 32
Leaving Earth The first step to living away from our planet started with the Apollo 11 Moon mission of 1969 Who first landed on the Moon On July 20 1969 Neil Armstrong left the lunar module Eagle and stepped on the surface of the Moon Earth’s natural satellite Armstrong and fellow astronaut Edwin Buzz Aldrin spent a total of 21 5 hours on the surface before they left the Moon and returned to Earth Armstrong and Aldrin experienced lunar gravity just one-sixth that of the Earth They carried out various science experiments during their short stay Astronauts on the Apollo 17 mission of 1972 rode in this electric Lunar Roving Vehicle They wore space suits while on board What happened on later Apollo flights Apollo 11 proved that humans could land and return safely from another world Five more Apollo missions explored the Moon and an electric Lunar Roving Vehicle LRV was used on the last three landings On the final Apollo 17 mission astronauts travelled 22 3 miles 35 9 km in the LRV
Where did we go after the Apollo missions The three-day Apollo 17 trip was the last time humans went to the Moon Since then we have stayed much closer The Moon is about 239,000 miles 385,000 km from Earth but the International Space Station ISS circles Earth only 250 miles 400 km away Will we go further than the ISS in future The mastermind behind Apollo was the German rocket scientist Wernher von Braun His plans included setting up a colony on Mars by the 1980s Von Braun was ahead of his time but now people are working to turn his dreams into reality A vital part of that future vision is research work being carried out on the International Space Station The Russian Mir right was a space station in service from 1986 2001 Lessons learned while running Mir led directly to the much bigger International Space Station of today Skylab of 1973-79 was an experimental space station used by three astronauts at a time It was made from an empty rocket fuel tank 5
