Next Steps In Exploring Deep Space, The

Humankind has been drawn to space for a number of reasons – the urge to expand beyond our boundaries and to explore the unknown; the desire of nations to compete for technological superiority; the desire to understand our natural world and the Universe around us. But today there is no single imperative sufficient to motivate the investments and national willpower required for human exploration beyond low-Earth orbit. The purpose of this book is to provide one possible vision for the scientific exploration of space in the first half of the 21st Century. It identifies a set of useful and achievable destinations – first the Moon, then the Sun–Earth Libration Point L2, Near-Earth Objects and finally Mars, the ultimate destination for humans in the next 50 years. This stepping-stone approach will gradually build the required capabilities and maintain interest and support by achieving important scientific discoveries at every step. The study that formed the basis for this book was chartered by the International Academy of Astronautics and conducted on a volunteer basis by a small number of individuals, independent of any government space agency. It is not a strategic implementation plan for any national space program; rather, it is intended to be a vision for the future that can be considered by interested space agencies, hopefully in the context of an international cooperative endeavor. Publishing of this book is supported by Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).