Conquering the Stars
As a species, I believe our greatest
achievement will be banding together and leaving our only home in the universe
to explore the stars and hopefully find new homes. Space exploration has hit
the wayside since the end of the space race and shuttle program, but the time
has come to turn our attention back to space. The idea of exploring space is
not a far out idea as current technology is making it possible to truly explore
space again. As the only creatures capable of such a momentous feat on this
planet, it is then our destiny to go out and learn our place in the cosmos.
Space is filled with resources and when we harness those resources, humanity
will enter a golden age of wealth, exploration, and possibility. To gain a
better understanding of this possibility I analyzed three different texts
including a peer reviewed article, a picture, and a website and determined my
own opinions of the texts.
The first text, the peer reviewed
article, is “Science, Technology and Imaginable Social and Behavioral Impacts
as Outer Space Develops” by Edythe E. Weeks. The article appears as any other
scholastic article in PDF form and part of a much greater academic journal
composed of such articles. This is very different from my other texts as they
do not have such a precise set of information pertaining to this article’s
specific purpose. The website I chose does have a great deal of information
pertaining to space travel, but it is more of a record of our past
accomplishments, rather than this article’s outline of future developments. The
article has a very hopeful and confident tone towards space travel. It shares
this tone with the website I mentioned earlier. Both describe space as a wonderful
and exciting place filled with possibilities and both use common language when
discussing space. Interestingly enough, the article actually discusses the
operator of the website I will be analyzing later on. The intended readers and
audience of this article is anyone interested in space travel, but is aimed at
the particular individuals in charge of education levels K-12 and college. It
is aimed at these people because the main message of this article is to lay the
groundwork for a society with a conflict free and sustainable approach to outer
space development. It wishes to spread a desire for knowledge and a universal
consciousness regarding newly emerging trends. Space needs to be integrated
into more topics in the educational curriculum to expose more students to outer
space. It says to fuse the humanities and astronomy in education particularly
college level education. In college, primarily only STEM (science, technology,
engineering, and math) students are exposed to outer space topics in their
studies. Once the humanities and astronomy fields become fused at the college
level, all students will be required to take an astronomy class for their
general education. The author, Edythe E. Weeks, understands these topics as she
is a professor of outer space development and international relations at
Washington University in St. Louis. She looks at the fact that only a small
amount of students are exposed to space and then looks at the fact that the
space race ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union. A second space race may
begin with new challengers to United States dominance such as South Africa,
India, and primarily China. Weeks also hopes that perhaps this competition will
one day turn to cooperation among all major superpowers capable of going into
space. I hope the ideas of this article come to fruition one day and we as a
species band together to step out into space again.
The second text I examined was a
picture of the International Space Station, or ISS. The picture gives a complete
and grand view of the station in its entirety above the Earth with the
curvature of the planet in the background in front of the blackness of space. The
photo was taken by the Space Shuttle Atlantis on May 23, 2010. The primary
purpose of the mission was to deliver two Russian research modules to the ISS
and the photo was shot as the shuttle was departing the station. This image
contains no text and is therefore completely different than my other texts. In
the beginning of the next space era, the ISS will undoubtedly be humanity’s
first stepping stone. As the largest man made structure outside Earth’s
atmosphere, the station will most likely be the first step for any vehicle that
has recently left Earth’s surface to refuel and continue on to extraterrestrial
destinations such as the moon, Mars, or even places we can’t even imagine yet.
It is a common idea that a picture is worth a thousand words and when I see
this picture, I see a momentous achievement in human engineering and a staging
area for future expeditions from our home planet.
The third and final text I analyzed
was the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) website. NASA is
the agency of the United States government responsible for the nation’s
civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research. This
organization put an American on the moon and won the space race for the United
States. The website has a large amount of information on past missions and
discoveries, plus it displays the dates for a handful of future missions. The
website also has a large amount of educational information which they hope will
spark the imagination in younger people, especially children, and encourage
them to learn more about space. Language and terminology is very important in any
scientific field and the website shares much of the same terminology from the
first article. Compared to the picture of the ISS, the website contains the
same exact picture and goes in depth into the history and specifications of the
station. If there is any message to be
taken from the NASA website, it should be their vision statement which reads “To
reach for new heights and reveal the unknown so that what we do and learn will
benefit all humankind” (Fox). The whole reason this website was produced, is to
make those heights and discoveries readily available to all humankind just as
their vision states. The website has many similarities and differences compared
to the other texts being analyzed.
Much of what anyone takes away from
a text or image is based on their personal analysis. To be effective or
persuasive, I believe that a text needs to be engaging above everything else. A
text or image that is engaging grabs a reader’s attention and holds onto it
until the message is delivered. If an article is not engaging, then it just
simply boring for the reader. Of the three texts, I believed the peer reviewed
article had the most effective message as it was the most concise and straight
to the point. The abstract clearly stated the purpose of the article and it was
very easy to digest the information due to the language and flow of the
article. The text that was the least effective was the picture. Even though a
picture is commonly worth a thousand words, I believe a majority of people are
not familiar with space exploration and therefore cannot comprehend the
importance of the station. The picture may have a thousand different meanings
to a thousand different people as well because the picture contains no clear
message.
It is very difficult to compare
texts from different genres, just as it is difficult to compare an individual
picture to a peer reviewed article. Even within one genre, the texts may be
completely different. The best example that comes to mind is fiction because
there are so many sub-genres in fiction like science fiction and fantasy that
they form their own genres. There is so much literature out there and authors
are coming up with new genres every year that any texts within the same genre
will not be the same. Again, with two works of fiction, one may be fantasy and
the other science fiction. However, every text is limited in the genre they
reside in.
Different genres always have rules
or guidelines to determine if a text fits into that genre. For instance, if I
was told to write a persuasive article, then I can’t write an autobiography.
Overall, the relationship between genre, message, and mode of delivery of a
text is defined by the author. The author has creative power to determine
everything about a text such as layout and target audience. These decisions may
have ramifications that even the author can’t predict.
There have been times in history
that a text has been able to shape individuals and even society as a whole.
There is a popular saying “you are what you eat”; however, the saying can also
be reflected in “you are what you read or see.” When president Teddy Roosevelt
heard the public outcry from the grotesque scenes depicting the meatpacking
industry in Upton Sinclair’s The
Jungle, it prompted him to ratify the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906
which would lead to the FDA today. Without the FDA, we might still be eating
rotten meat. Similarly, Karl Marx and his works of political theory would
eventually lead to the formation of the Soviet Union and communism. Muckraking
novels and other revolutionary texts that revealed issues in food packaging,
politics, etc. lead to major changes in society. The masses read these texts
and in turn found themselves aligning with the ideals which lead them to become
revolutionaries fighting for change.
Space is the final frontier for
humanity. A change is coming for our species where we will one day band
together in our common hunger for knowledge and a new territory to conquer
together. The peer reviewed article sought to instill a curriculum of astronomy
in all levels of education. Secondly, the picture of the International Space
Station displayed humanity’s largest structure in space in its complete glory.
Finally, the NASA website offered a large amount of information easily
available that sought to inspire and share space history with the masses. Some
of these texts were more effective than others due to information and message.
It is time though, for humanity to step back out and conquer the stars to bring
us into a new prosperous age of knowledge and exploration.
Works Cited
Fox,
Steve. "About NASA." NASA. United States Government, 30
Sep 2013. Web. 4 Mar 2014. <http://www.nasa.gov/about/index.html>.
STS-132
Shuttle Mission Imagery. 2010. Photograph. NASAWeb. 4 Mar
2014. <http://spaceflight.nasa.gov/gallery/images/shuttle/sts-132/html/s132e012208.html>.
Weeks,
Edythe E. "Science, Technology and Imaginable Social and Behavioral
Impacts as Outer Space
Develops." Acta Astronautica. 95. (2014): 166-173. Web. 4 Mar.
2014.
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