Hi Dylan,

For years now, many, many unmanned spacecrafts (robotic) have left Earth on missions to the inner solar system planets as well as the outer planets. We've flown by Jupiter Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, and presently have a spacecraft enroute to Pluto.

We've landed on Mars several times, two current robotic rovers, Spirit and Opportunity are still working there! We've also orbited, and landed on "HOT" Venus, and as well have a spacecraft headed to Mercury, known as the Mercury Messenger mission.

So, we've sent out a lot of robots, but only have landed men on the Moon back in the late 60's and 70's. We currently have a space shuttle docked to the space station orbiting Earth. You can see the space station and shuttle from your area, by visiting;

http://spaceflight.nasa.gov

Go into Sighting Opportunities, and look for your geographic area, it gives you dates and times you can see them orbiting the Earth!

Jim Stryder

Hi Dylan,

One thing that the other posts in response to your question didn't mention is that past deep space missions to study the outer planets like Jupiter and Saturn have had to rely upon radioactive materials to generate electrical power for their instruments. When these missions were launched, solar panel technology was not advanced enough to provide reliable power so far away from the Sun. One of the themes of this run of Solar Week is "solar energy," so I thought you might be interested to know that the next unmanned mission to study the planet Jupiter will use new solar panel technology to power the spacecraft. You can read more about the Juno mission and its solar panels here:

http://juno.wisc.edu/spacecraft.html

Scientists and engineers here at the University of Iowa are building an instrument for the Juno mission to measure plasma waves in space.

Kris