Space exploration is an important aspect of human evolution in the late 20th and in the 21st Centuries. Since the first Sputnik launch, there are now nearly 3,000 satellites orbiting Earth, each serving different purposes. One benefit of these for everyday life relates to communication, traffic, and navigation issues. The challenges that need to be overcome for space push technological limits, stimulating scientists and engineers to develop new products, which then become part of everyday life, such as freeze-dried foods, water purification systems, and scratch resistant lenses.
One of the next challenges is to build a Space Gateway to allow deep space missions, like the transit to Mars. This will require a huge joint effort by the international community to develop a series of technologies to allow humans to survive in hostile environments for long periods of time. Life support in space is, therefore, one of the main challenges at present.