Nomad Rover in the Atacama Desert
April 12, 2011 marked the 50th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s 108-minute trip around the world and the beginning of human spaceflight. If you’re an expat like me, your thoughts probably go abroad when you contemplate space exploration,* but for a little country, Chile does more stargazing than you might expect.
Did you know…
- Arid northern Chile is home to over 20 astronomical observatories
- The Atacama is Mars on Earth: the Atacama desert’s famously dry climate also makes it an ideal spot to study the properties of soil on the moon and Mars.
- Mining is like space travel underground: After the 2010 accident at Copipó’s San José mine, Chilean government received assistance from U.S. space agency NASA on medical, nutritional and behavioral health issues affecting the the 33 miners, as well as on the design of the Fénix capsules used to rescue them.
- Chile created its own Space Agency in 2001. (However, its political dependence on the Ministry and Under-Secretariat of Economy suggests a mission more closely aligned with foreign investment than scientific research.)
- Aerospace engineer Klaus von Storch, of Osorno, was selected for a mission to visit the International Space Station in 2002, but did not go (sources cite lack of funds, a failed medical exam, and post-Columbia confusion as reasons). He left the Air Force several years ago but apparently still hopes to be the first Chilean astronaut.
- While Chile has yet to send a human to space, in 1999 they did manage to send some lucky ladybugs in order to prove their offworld pest-control efficacy.
- The Google Lunar X Prize: Angelicum Chile was one of 29 teams selected in February 2011 to compete for the $30 million Google Lunar X PRIZE, “an unprecedented competition to send a robot to the Moon that travels at least 500 meters and transmit video, images, and data back to the Earth.” Angelicum themselves say that through this effort they hope to “motivate and encourage our citizens and discover new talents, especially in the area of the technology and science.”
- Astrophiles planning to stick around for a while may get the chance to visit the European Southern Observatory’s Extremely Large Telescope, which is to be constructed in Chile and is scheduled for completion towards the end of the decade. (Plans for the Overwhelmingly Large Telescope were scrapped due to its estimated €1.5 billion price tag.)
* By contrast, your thoughts apparently turn to space travel when choosing a logo for your Chilean website.