Space Vehicles
Technology has come a long way in the last 100 years, which has seen the
advent of computers, space travel, and nuclear energy. One use of
technology is the construction of vehicles that are capable of space travel.
These can be divided into several sub-groups. These include:
- Payload Delivery systems
- unmanned probes
- orbiting artificial satellites
All systems that we have developed for delivering a payload into orbit are rocket-based.
These vehicles use vast quantities of combustible fuel to achieve escape
velocity in order to leave the Earth's massive gravity well. Pushing a
vehicle into space takes a very large amount of force, for a sustained period of
time. Therefore, our rocket engines must be vastly powerful, and be able
to work in the vacuum and cold of space. This section describes a few of
these monstrously powerful vehicles.
The very longest trips, living human beings have not yet attempted.
Tickets for trips to the other heavenly bodies of our solar system are reserved
for our faithful robot servants. Humans also have not yet attempted to
stay for long in a weightless environment. This section is reserved for
those vehicles which do not require human guidance who are likely to be our
ambassadors to the other objects in our solar system for some time yet...