The Year in Review: Space

And even if we do identify a world that could support life, humanity is still a long way away from getting there. As things stand, we haven't even left Earth's orbit, and are just now setting our sights on improved human space travel.

As it often is when a tyke first loses his training wheels, this year has seen some disaster with space flight.

"Rockets are tricky," billionaire-entrepreneur Elon Musk tweeted back in August after one of his company's reusable Falcon rockets self destructed a few seconds into a test launch.

The company, SpaceX, was one of two companies that were awarded a massive US government contract to help taxi astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) just last September, ushering in what many are calling "a new era" for private space industry.

However, this era also began with disaster. SpaceX competitor Orbital Sciences suffered a massive setback just last October, after one of their unmanned supply deliveries to the ISS fell mid-liftoff, resulting in a tremendous explosion.

[Credit: Brad Panovich via NASA live stream]

Not even three days later, Virgin Galactic suffered from an absolute tragedy, where one pilot died and another was injured in a crash of their prototype SpaceShipTwo during testing in the Mojave desert.

"I truly believe that humanity's greatest achievements come out of our greatest pain," Sir Richard Branson, who founded Virgin Galactic, later wrote in a blog post. "We are determined to honor the bravery of the pilots and teams here by learning from this tragedy. Only then can we move forwards, united behind a collective desire to push the boundaries of human endeavour."

Reaching for the Stars

Still, at the end of the day, 2014 saw humanity get closer to the heavens than ever before, especially concerning NASA's stunning success with the Orion spacecraft's first flight test.

That's the craft that the agency hopes to see carrying humans to Mars in a decade's time, lifted into deeper space than we have ever gone before with the help of the Space Launch System - the world's most powerful rocket. 2014 saw the official start of construction of that rocket, and its first flight is expected to occur no later than Nov. 2018.

I don't know about you, but I think that this was one impressive year for space travel and understanding, and I certainly can't wait to see what 2015 will ring in. Happy New Year, Earth.

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