The Exploration of Space

For millennia, humans have gazed in wonder at the stars.  Every culture developed its own mythology to make sense of the patterns in the night sky.  Then, in the last century, something amazing happened.  Our technology caught up to our wonder and we learned how to “slip the surly bonds of Earth.”  For the past six decades, some of our most cleverly designed machines and daring explorers have helped us dip our toes into the vast cosmic ocean that surrounds our little blue marble of a home.  In this course, we will study the people, science, and technology that have brought humanity some of its most captivating and unifying moments, from Isaac Newton to Neil Armstrong, from Sputnik to the James Webb Telescope.  At the same time, we will examine the social and political reasons why nations devote talent and resources to sending those machines and people into space in the first place.  We will also study the technical and human causes of noted disasters, such as Challenger and Columbia.  Finally, we will consider whether, if we are careful enough, humanity may one day evolve into a truly spacefaring civilization.