A couple inside an O'Neill cylinder - a large-scale, inverted world - orbiting high above the Earth. Could this be the future of space travel, or is it just a dream?
Credit: Jamie Tufrey/COSMOS
SYDNEY: Since Russia's Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space on 12 April 1961, the value of manned spaceflight has divided everyone from scientists and politicians to the average citizen.
No-one's denying the value of exploration - where would we be without GPS, satellite communications and weather forecasting? But when that comes at a cost of tens of millions of dollars per flight, and at a time when so many problems beset our little world and its burgeoning population, space exploration looks like an increasingly tough sell.
One of our most redeeming features as humans is our curiosity, our insatiable desire for knowledge, and our willingness to seek it - even in the face of some pretty terrifying odds; it's what made our species such a successful one. Which is why, rather than giving up space altogether, we need to rethink the way we go about space exploration. And bring the costs down.
It's the 50th anniversary of humanity's first foray into space today, so to mark the occasion we've compiled a collection of articles in Cosmos Online.
Eternal frontier
Going into space may be one of the best things we can do to save our world, and ourselves, argues Wilson da Silva.
Forget space travel: it's just a dream
The clash of two titans - physics and chemistry - are major barriers to human space travel to Mars and beyond, and may well make it impossible ... at least with existing technologies.
Spaceflight: the next 50 years
Pull up a browser and check out what's on as the science world reflects on 50 years of space exploration and marks Yuri Gagarin's solo flight into space.
Are manned missions a waste of space?
As the world looks back at manned space flight, a trail blazed by Yuri Gagarin's 108-minute trip around the planet 50 years ago, critics wonder if it's all been just a cosmic waste of money.
Mission to Mars
Going to Mars would stretch human technology and ingenuity to its outer limits, but if humanity is ever to spread across the Solar System, it's a diabolical challenge we will need to overcome.
Rocket science
Expanding across the Solar System will require more than a simple blast off, and a range of promising new propulsion technologies are being investigated.
Why we should not return to the Moon
NASA recently slammed a probe into the Moon and found 'abundant' water. But a return to the Moon is pointless both scientifically and technologically, says astronomer Alastair Gunn.
Space or bust
Going into space used to be something that only nations with multibillion dollar budgets could do. Now, anyone with a bit of courage and a lot of loose change can live the dream.
The final frontier
In the 1960s, the space race created a fascination with science and great technological advances. To find alien life we need to take back up that mantle, says astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, and send people further into space.
Mars500 volunteers 'land' on Mars
Three of the six volunteers in the Mars500 experiment 'touch down' on Mars after 244 days of virtual flight - all without leaving a Moscow research centre.
Space flight
It is important that scientific research accelerates the study of 'space' , even if we conclude that we exist alone. As we are continuing to destroy our earth, we will have to change drastically the way of life that we perpetuated since homo sapiens continued to evolve.