Ford Neild March 12th, 2016
Current Event AP Biology
SpaceX Sticks a Rocket Landing at Sea in Historic First
On April 8th, 2016, Spacex made a truly space age leap forward in the process of commercializing space travel: Elon Musk and his company landed a autonomous rocket, Falcon 9, on an unmanned sea craft, “Of Course I Still Love You.” This was the company's fifth attempt at landing a ship on the sea platform. Other attempts failed because, although the spaceship made it to the sea platform, it was unable to stick the landing successfully. This was also the first attempt of one of Musk’s ship to carry the dragon, a cargo payload to be delivered to the International Space Station (ISS). The dragon, which reached the ISS two days after launch, carried tools and equipment as well as a compressed biosphere that could expand as needed by astronauts on the ISS. This expandable habitat, called BEAM, will be the first of its kind to be occupied by humans in space. Another important factor of the dragon, is it ability to reenter the atmosphere without burning up. This means that we are able to have two way transport with the ISS, where we can send up supplies and they can return scientific samples for further research. Moving forward from this point, SpaceX plans to send up many more flights like this one at a faster pace. Hans Koenigsmann, VP for flight reliability at SpaceX, said "It is true we have to pick up the pace, and we will pick up the pace," he said, adding that the next scheduled launch for the company will come near the end of April, with another set for the beginning of May.
"So the time between the missions will get shorter and shorter...And we hope we're going to be able to launch basically every other week by the end of the year."
This article's implications on future space travel are unbelievable. On a broader scope, musk and his team are passionately working to commercialize space travel and have already done so. Musks price for delivering space equipment is only 60 million, one third that of his nearest competitor. Musk estimates that these prices could reach as low as 500,000 dollars as every part of his spacecraft, besides the 200,000 dollar fuel, is completely reusable. Looking forward we can expect to see not only scientific advancements in space travel, but also commercial ones. Vacations are already being discussed by Musk and his team and with the rapid recent progressions, these dreams may not be dreams for long.
I felt this article was very well written, as it explained a very complex and scientific topic in a digestible manner. This makes it more appealing to non scientist who simply are interested in the coming of the space age. Although concise and made readable to a non scientist, there were some aspects of this article that I felt could have been improved upon. As previously mentioned, the author attempted to remove much of the scientific knowledge behind this topic to make it easy to read. However, this cost the article as it lacked any science at all and merely summarized the launch without providing details that could help give credibility to the author's work. To improve on this, I would recommend not removing scientific language from articles, but rather simplify it. In doing so, the author both teaches the reader a little bit about science and also makes the process fun and easy.
Cofield, Calla. "SpaceX Sticks a Rocket Landing at Sea in Historic First."Space.com. N.p., 8 Apr. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
http://www.space.com/32517-spacex-sticks-rocket-landing-sea-dragon-launch.html
Great review Ford! You gave a good summary-- it was cohesive and easy to understand, while also giving all the important information and covering all the points of the article. Additionally, your explanations were well written. I really understood the details of the launch and how impressive this rocket is. Another great point of your review was the second paragraph: it was a great addition that really emphasized and described the scope and future this technology has in the scientific world.
ReplyDeleteAlthough your review was extremely strong, to make it even stronger I would add another quote from a scientist. Getting an expert’s opinion on a topic is always a good idea because it increases the credibility of the reviewer.
The most interesting thing to me in this article was the fact that space travel could soon become a regular and commercialized industry! This discovery is such a leap forward and the possibilities of what the scientists could do with it are endless!
Cofield, Calla. "SpaceX Sticks a Rocket Landing at Sea in Historic First."Space.com. N.p., 8 Apr. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
http://www.space.com/32517-spacex-sticks-rocket-landing-sea-dragon-launch.html
Current Event 18
ReplyDeleteCofield, Calla. "SpaceX Sticks a Rocket Landing at Sea in Historic First."Space.com. N.p., 8 Apr. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
Ford’s article review was captivating to read because it had very many great aspects. First off, he incorporated quotes from the article, which added credibility to his summary. The summary itself was also very concise, yet detailed. It helped me understand the topic at hand without having to read a long summary. Lastly, I think that his criticism of the article that it lacked scientific facts showed a high degree of analysis and helped me look at the article in a way that I did not consider before.
Although the article review was mostly effective, some parts could have been improved. I think that more context in the beginning about the company and when they started the spaceship launches would have helped me understand the summary better. Adding such information would give readers a more complete understanding of the topic at hand. Ford also could have used a quote from a scientist in the summary, along with the quote from the VP that he added. This would have added another dimension of scientific credibility to his summary.
This article review helped me learn a lot about the developments towards commercialized space travel, which I was not aware of before. I chose this article review because the topic seemed relevant to the near future and space travel is a topic that I am interested in. It changed my understanding of space travel in that it could be a reality sooner than I had anticipated because of successful developments like the one that Ford describes in this article review.
Ellie Briskin AP Biology C Even
ReplyDeleteApril 20, 2016 Current Event 18 Comment
Cofield, Calla. "SpaceX Sticks a Rocket Landing at Sea in Historic First."Space.com. N.p., 8 Apr. 2016. Web. 12 Apr. 2016.
http://www.space.com/32517-spacex-sticks-rocket-landing-sea-dragon-launch.html
Awesome job with this review, Ford! First off, you summarized everything clearly and seemingly with ease, covering all of the main points of the article without including any extraneous details. Not only that, but you were able to establish a connection to how this topic affects human beings today, something that many people struggle with in these current events; you helped the reader see the breakthroughs we are making in possibly commercializing space travel, a potential occurrence which would drastically change life as we know it worldwide. Thirdly, your writing style was very easy to read and follow, yet remained extremely informative. This is an extremely hard quality to find in nonfiction writings, which are usually either much oversimplified or much overcomplicated; this hints at a real knack you have for writing intellectual reviews!
Audrey, it's so hard to think of any area which could benefit from improvement! But if anything, you may benefit from some more outside information in general. I’m still not clear on the logistics of landing a rocket on an unmanned seacraft, or what that exactly means. This took away from my ability to understand the context that this article was written under and the conditions that spur the author to make certain claims. Secondly, although your writing on its own, Ford, was great, the professionalism of the article could have been enhanced with the inclusion of more quotes. Although this is overall not too significant, the use of more scientific quotes would have legitimized your argument and made it stronger.
But on the whole, Ford, this review was astounding. Your writing and analysis blew me away. It really taught me a lot about space travel and its potential in the future, a topic I was aware of before but not very knowledgeable about. After reading this, I'll be sure to pay closer attention to similar articles pertaining to the SpaceX missions and anything about possibly commercializing space travel. Of course, discoveries in this topic also force me to remember that scientifically, there is always room for improvement, and that no progress in any field is ever truly completed; we have some solid groundwork now, but we must continue to work towards more concrete and developed technologies. Overall, I chose this article because of my lack of knowledge of the topic, and am extremely glad that this is the one I read. Thanks, Ford, for giving me such a great read!