ADVANCED ROCKETS AND SPACECRAFT MAY SAVE YOUR LIFE ONE DAY IN THE NEAR FUTURE

Move over space tourism, in the future advanced rockets and spacecraft will have more important tasks to keep busy with besides becoming a cosmic tour train.

Wilfred Ashley McIsaac

GLOBAL ORBITAL DELIVERY SERVICES

   

    As aerospace technology including the advancements of rockets and spacecraft move forward at a seemingly unstoppable pace,  the future in express services to the most remote locations on planet Earth will become shockingly fast.  While most private aerospace companies are now concentrating on sending paying customers into low earth orbit; others, such as Global Orbital Delivery Services,  are looking for better ways of using this future technology for more practical purposes on planet earth.

     From sending medical supplies to impoverished nations suffering from a natural disaster, drought, or some other catastrophe; to shipping out emergency spare parts or critical operating equipment for big industry.  

    Yes, the list of what a autonomous descending spacecraft can accomplish, one which can lift off and land anywhere on the planet in under an hour, is long indeed.  Here are just three very dramatically different examples of why rockets in the future will improve life on our planet while flying at or below low earth orbit.

Disaster Relief

    The powerful typhoon that has recently devastated parts of the Philippines (left pic above) was a reminder to all of us of how quickly conditions on our planet can change in a very short time and paralyze a country within hours.   In the future behind companies such as ‘XCOR Aerospace, Spacex,  Virgin Galactic, etc; and through the support of World Health Organizations including Unicef, help can arrive (right pic) almost immediately from anywhere in the world carrying important medical supplies, food, and water.

      Imagine the surprise from victims of such devastation when within minutes, space capsules, in a controlled descent, begin landing around the devastation carrying life saving supplies.   

Big Industry

     The same express analogy also applies to the shipment of critical operating supplies to big industry such as oil refineries.   Imagine a giant rig in the South Pacific suddenly shut down because of a critical part or instrument breaking down.   With no back-up on board and civilization thousands of miles away,  it would normally take one or two days to have the necessary equipment or replacement parts shipped in to resolve the situation.   As precious time goes by the operating company stands to lose millions of dollars.  

     With the autonomous controlled descent of a rocket's upper stage in the not too distant future,  the emergency supply vehicle can land on the deck of any ship or oil rig within a very short time of being called into action.  Like a helicopter but with no pilot and no propellers.   Instead of losing precious time waiting for conventional transportation currently in use,   the workers watch as within hours or even minutes a rocket lands on deck carrying new equipment.  The employees are back to work almost immediately.  

Buried In Space

   While this revolutionary technology will be able to save countless amount of lives from around the world,  it will also have the capability of giving people a funeral and final resting place suitable for a galactic king or queen.  Space urns carrying the remains of loved ones will be jettisoned from low earth orbiting spacecraft while the deceased begin quietly circling the planet for hundreds if not thousands of years inside memorial type satellites no bigger than a tennis ball.   

    In recent years companies such as Spacex have flown the remains of several deceased celebrities on board their Dragon spacecraft including legendary Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry.  If given the option these same people would rather remain up in space for eternity while they endlessly loop around their home planet in a cosmic death dance.

     Perhaps,  some of these memorial satellites will have strong reflective properties which at night can be seen from the ground.  In time an astronomer or anyone for that matter looking up at the heavens may see hundreds or even thousands of these cosmic tombstones orbiting our planet in celestial graveyards eerily moving across the night sky.  

     So the future is looking up (sort of speak) for the aerospace community in more ways than one.   Besides space tourism and trips to the moon and mars,  spacecraft relegated to low earth orbit may surprise you while one day saving your life or morbidly displaying your physical remains for all the world to see.   

     Perhaps,  some of these memorial satellites will have strong reflective properties which at night can be seen from the ground.  In time an astronomer or anyone for that matter looking up at the heavens may see hundreds or even thousands of these cosmic tombstones orbiting our planet in celestial graveyards eerily moving across the night sky.