Sky is the Limit

 The greatest gift to mankind probably are the eyes. That we can see things around us is amazing. How did nature think that creatures required to see to live? What a tremendous evolution. That you could see meant that you could see the skies which is bountiful and endless. You could then easily see the birds flying amazingly and the eagles gliding in gay abandon.

 And then began the quest to fly. One of the earliest ways to connect with the skies was through flying kites and ballooning.

The Mythology of Flying:

  In the Hindu mythology The Ramayana has Hanuman flying to mount Meru and bring back the mountain itself (since he could not recognize the herb he was instructed to bring)  to heal Laxman The lord Rama’s brother. In the same epic Ravana the villain is said to possess Pushpak the flying chariot. In another incidence Saint Tukaram is believed to have departed to Vaikunth with Lord Vithoba escorting him in a Viman (an aeroplane).

 In Greek mythology Icarus son of master craftsman Daedalus ignored instructions not to fly too close to the Sun (since the wings were made out of feathers and wax) which melted and fell into the sea.

 Science Fiction:

 Several fantasy and science fiction writers took several flights into space. Isaac Asimov, Arther c Clarke, Jules Verne, H G Wells wrote science fiction and fantasy which formed the basics of several scientific mission that man has undertaken to the Moon and Mars and beyond.

 Rocketry:

• Chinese: Mongols besieging the city of Kaifeng in 1232 used arrows propelled by rockets.
• Arabs: Conceived rockets by the 13^th century and used them against Saint Louis in the seventh crusade.
• Italians: Did rocketry in the 15^th century. Leonardo Da Vinci conceived five hundred sketches and thirtyfive thousand words. However his pedaling of arms and feet theory proved disastrous.
•  Britishers: Developed Congreve rocket -ancestor of modern ballistic missile used in the war of 1812 and The Battle of Waterloo.

  Space Explorations:

   We are well aware of the bitch Lyka's first mission into space and then the famousYuri Gagarin's sojourn. Thereafter the Luna 3 and subsequently Zond 3 both Soviet expeditions sent the first images of the hidden side of the Moon. Later Luna 13 landed on the Moon. Zond 5 was the first to circle and return back to Earth
  However the most popular of the missions were the Apollo missions which carried human beings to the surface of the Moon and returned. Manueores including lift off , leaving Earths orbit, travelling in deep space, undocking, landing on Moon's surface, liftoff, docking and returning back to the Earth's surface were carried out.
  International Space Station expeditions creating a Space Station just beyond the confines of Earth's influence (to act as future stations under ideal lift off conditions to fly into further deep space) were carried out by Russia and America successfully by using Aeroplane like Space shuttles.
 Mercury, Venus, Mars and the Sun too have seen space missions by America, Russia, ESA, Japan, China and India. Most of these were flybys but some of them were robotic landings. Of note are the robotic missions to Mars when rovers Spirit and Opportunity combed the surface of Mars for years and now a more advanced  Curiosity is conducting more detailed experiments.
 India's recent mission Mangalyan to Mars too is significant and noteworthy.

 The Limits of Travelling in Space

  We walk at almost 5 kmph. Bullet trains can accelerate upto 300 kmph. Aeroplanes can fly at a speed of 1300/1500 kmph.
  It takes about 9 months to travel to Mars one way.
 A space mission probe 'New Horizons' took off to space in 2006 on a nine year mission bound to Pluto and beyond and flyby Pluto in 2015. It will have travelled 5 billion kms at the rate of about 1500000 kms per day.
  All this travel in space parlance of light years is negligible and we wont reach anywhere if we have to be ambitious to know the farther reaches and the deeper echelons of the sky. It is humanly difficult to travel space on account of radiation and depletion of oxygen and other space related problems. Right now various space agencies are trying to assess the difficulties involved in conducting a human space mission to Mars by creating similar circumstances on Earth. However we would'nt still be doing much to travel beyond the solar system which itself is about 1.2 light years from Earth.
  What we have achieved better is by peeping ourselves through telescopes especially Hubble Space telescope and the Chandra space observatory. We have delved into 100's of light years into space located several galaxies geographically (International Astronomical Union does this).
  As we know light and radio waves can travel the fastest ie at the speed of light. When will be able to travel like those flying saucers which we have fantasised and dreamt about?