Space Exploration & the New Space Age

What this subject explores

• Astronaut
• Launch
• New Space Age
• Orbit
• Payload

Sources & further reading

• NASA — Probabilistic Risk Assessment procedural requirements (historical edition) ↗
• ESA — Space Environment Report 2025 ↗
• NASA — Commercial Crew Program overview ↗
• NASA JPL — Planetary protection: mission implementation ↗
• NASA History — Sputnik and the dawn of the Space Age ↗

Watch

• Five Wonders of our Universe | Universe | BBC Earth Science ↗BBC Earth Science
• Uncovering the Secrets of the International Space Station (Full Episode) | Superstructures ↗National Geographic
• Decoding the Universe: Quantum | Full Documentary | NOVA | PBS ↗NOVA PBS Official
• The Untold Story of the Space Race (1957-1963) | Full Documentary | American Experience | PBS ↗American Experience | PBS

Read

• The Right Stuff ↗A vivid chronicle of America's pioneering astronauts, this work dissects the daring and psychological fortitude essential for breaching the heavens.Tom Wolfe
• The Space Barons: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and the Quest to Colonize the Cosmos ↗An indispensable guide to the disruptive forces and outsized personalities propelling the burgeoning commercial space industry.Christian Davenport
• Apollo 13 ↗This gripping, first-hand account of ingenuity under extreme duress illuminates the perilous complexities and human resilience inherent in crewed space missions.Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger
• The Case for Mars: The Plan to Settle the Red Planet and Why We Must ↗A seminal work, it outlines a pragmatic yet audacious vision for human interplanetary settlement, challenging conventional wisdom on space colonisation.Robert Zubrin
• The New Space Race (Special Report)An incisive overview of the geopolitical and commercial rivalries defining the contemporary push into orbit and beyond, from satellite constellations to lunar ambitions.The Economist

Voices to follow

• Elon Musk ↗His relentless pursuit of reusable rockets and Mars colonisation has fundamentally reshaped the commercial space industry and its ambitions.Entrepreneur, CEO of SpaceX
• Lori Garver ↗A key architect of NASA's shift towards commercial partnerships, she championed the private sector's role in reducing launch costs and fostering innovation.Former NASA Deputy Administrator, CEO of Earthrise Alliance
• Eric Berger ↗Offers sharp, in-depth reporting and analysis on the technical challenges, corporate strategies, and political currents driving the modern space industry.Senior Space Editor, Ars Technica
• Bill Nye ↗As a prominent advocate and leader of The Planetary Society, he champions public engagement and political support for ambitious space science and exploration missions.Science communicator, CEO of The Planetary Society

Glossary

• AstronautAn astronaut is a person specially trained and equipped to travel and work in space. They conduct experiments, repair equipment, and explore beyond Earth. For example, Sunita Williams is a famous astronaut who has spent many months living and working on the International Space Station.
• LaunchLaunch refers to the act of sending a rocket or spacecraft into space from Earth. It involves a powerful lift-off, usually from a special launchpad. For example, when you hear "T-minus 10 seconds and counting" before a rocket takes off, that's the countdown to launch.
• New Space AgeThe New Space Age is the current era of space exploration where private companies, not just governments, are playing a huge role in developing rockets, satellites, and space travel. This has made space travel more affordable and innovative. For example, companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin are key players in the New Space Age, building their own rockets and planning trips to the Moon and Mars.
• OrbitOrbit is the curved path an object takes as it travels around another, much larger object in space, held in place by gravity (the invisible force that pulls things towards each other). For example, the Earth orbits the Sun, and the Moon orbits the Earth, just like a satellite orbits Earth.
• PayloadThe payload is whatever a rocket or spacecraft is carrying on its journey, besides the fuel and the vehicle itself. This could be a satellite, scientific instruments, or even astronauts. For example, if a delivery truck is taking packages to a store, the packages are its payload.
• ReusabilityReusability in space exploration means designing rockets and spacecraft so they can be used multiple times, instead of being thrown away after one flight. This makes space travel much cheaper and more sustainable. For example, when a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster lands back on Earth after launching a satellite, it's demonstrating reusability, ready to be refueled and flown again.
• RocketA rocket is a powerful vehicle that uses thrust (a strong pushing force) from burning fuel to launch objects, like satellites or spacecraft, into space. For example, when you see a fireworks rocket shoot up into the sky, it's using the same basic principle, just on a much smaller scale, to overcome Earth's gravity.
• SatelliteA satellite is an object, either natural (like the Moon) or man-made, that orbits (travels around) a larger object in space. Man-made satellites are used for things like sending TV signals, providing GPS navigation, and monitoring weather. For example, the satellite dish on your roof connects to a satellite orbiting Earth to bring you television channels.
• Space StationA space station is a large spacecraft designed for astronauts to live and work in space for long periods. It's like a scientific laboratory and living quarters floating high above Earth. For example, the International Space Station (ISS) is a famous space station where astronauts from different countries live and do research together.
• SpacecraftA spacecraft is any vehicle designed to travel in outer space. This broad term includes rockets, satellites, space stations, and capsules that carry astronauts. For example, the Apollo 11 spacecraft carried astronauts to the Moon, and the Mars Rover is a spacecraft exploring the surface of Mars.

Threads 6

Where this connects to other fields, and why it's worth knowing.

• Probability, Risk & Uncertainty Mathematics

  NASA’s probabilistic risk assessment guidance connects possible failure scenarios, their likelihoods and their consequences. Space missions make uncertainty tangible: engineers must distinguish a component failure from a mission-level outcome and examine assumptions behind estimates, rather than treating a single risk number as certainty.

  Sources: NASA — Probabilistic Risk Assessment procedural requirements (historical edition) ↗

• Market Failure & Externalities Economics

  ESA documents orbital debris, collision hazards and avoidance activity. A launch or fragmentation can impose collision risks on other operators who did not create the debris. That is an externality lens on space activity: individual missions use a shared orbital environment whose costs are not confined to the originating operator.

  Sources: ESA — Space Environment Report 2025 ↗

• Entrepreneurship and New Ventures Business & Enterprise

  NASA’s Commercial Crew Program pairs agency requirements and purchasing with spacecraft developed and operated by commercial providers. It gives entrepreneurship a concrete institutional setting: a new venture’s technology, financing and business model can depend on a public customer and demanding safety requirements.

  Sources: NASA — Commercial Crew Program overview ↗

• Ethics and Moral Philosophy Philosophy

  NASA’s planetary-protection procedures address contamination carried by spacecraft to other worlds and risks associated with returning material. This makes exploration an ethical question about stewardship and obligations to future investigators, as well as an engineering question about preserving reliable evidence in searches for life.

  Sources: NASA JPL — Planetary protection: mission implementation ↗

• The Cold War History

  NASA’s history places Sputnik’s 1957 launch within US–Soviet competition and the US response that led to NASA’s creation in 1958. The Cold War shaped institutions and priorities in early spaceflight; space achievements, in turn, became visible demonstrations of technological and political capability.

  Sources: NASA History — Sputnik and the dawn of the Space Age ↗

• Catastrophic & Existential Risk Global Challenges

  Planetary defence turns a class of natural hazard into a practical problem of observation, orbital modelling and tested intervention. Space research supplies the measurements; catastrophic-risk analysis asks what the test demonstrates and what remains unprotected.

  Sources: Nancy Chabot ↗ · NASA Confirms DART Mission Impact Changed Asteroid’s Motion in Space ↗