Russia launches rocket to explore Mars' moon: The start of a new space race?

Philippines
November 9, 2011 7:22am CST
Just got wind of the news. At 12:16am Moscow time, the Phonos-Grunt spacecraft was launched in Kazahkstan. This is an unmanned mission that was designed not only to collect space rocks/debris on the surface of Phobos, but also to test if resilient bacteria from the Earth can live on an extraterrestrial location. Now, I recall that the US had just decommissioned its Space Shuttle missions, so this news got me thinking: will this be the start of a new space race? Will other countries be following suit in the coming years? What do you think?
2 responses
• Calgary, Alberta
9 Feb 12
there are 2 ways of colonizing mars, first would be building domed cities. domed cities will have air and pressure which humans need to stay alive. I think you are familiar with domed cities cos they were shown a lot in sci fi movies. the 2nd method is terraforming. mars is a frozen planet, if global warming kills earth, its medicine in case of mars. Once the ice in the poles of mars melted, mars will have water, they will try to plant algae around mars, to produce oxygen, then start to plant trees. once mars is covered with trees, humans can now live on it without space suites. Terraforming mars will take 100 hundred years, so yeah the domed cities is the fastest way to invade mars.
@ceasar09 (442)
• Philippines
9 Nov 11
Maybe this is the time for the next era for space probes. So they are having the unmanned probe to mars moon to explore and see if some bacteria here on earth can live there. Maybe this is also a big leap in finding the new Earth were human could also live. NASA and other space Department are still waiting for the signal that could really means that there are other species living in different planet. For sure other countries could also send their probes to mars moon or different planet because they doesn't want to be left behind. =)