Thursday, February 14, 2013
A Start-Up Sees a Gold Rush Among the Stars
Fallon Raviol February 14, 2013
Block C Ms. Davies
Citation: Johnson, Kirk. "A Start-Up Sees a Gold Rush Among the Stars." The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 Dec. 2012. Web. 14 Feb. 2013.
Chris Lewicki, president of Planetary Resources is planning that in this next decade are preparing for the next gold rush, except this gold rush will be among the stars. Almost one hundred years ago, in the 1920’s scientists had started to think about being able to get chunks of asteroids and bring them back to Earth because the asteroids contain a platinum group of metal, and are high in gold and are also very rare. Many companies today have started to think of ways to actually get the asteroid back to Earth. Chris Lewicki not only has a plan, but he thinks that he could possibly launch ships into space and bring the chunks of an asteroid back to Earth in the next decade, and he thinks that the cost would only be “in the single-digit million” (Johnson, Kirk. "A Start-Up Sees a Gold Rush Among the Stars." The New York Times. The New York Times, 25 Dec. 2012. Web. 14 Feb. 2013). One asteroid mining company opened about ten ago, and sold its shares to people, only to crash and fail its people. Now, since Planetary Resources, is proposing an idea that is less than ten million dollars, and it will be finished in the next decade, people are starting to doubt him and are telling him that this is not possible. Also in the movie “Avatar” produced by Mr. Cameron, there is an effort to extract unobtanium on a moon, but in his movie, the people failed. Dr. Sykes, an advisor of Planetary Resources on asteroid science said that maybe one day this company would succeed, but not for a long time and the cost would be more expensive than just a couple of millions of dollars. Also, Erik Asphaug, a professor of planetary science at Arizona State University, who studies asteroid, says that since there is no gravity the ship would have to land on the asteroid chunk, which could possible be the size of a city block, ad lock itself to the asteroid. Erik Asphaug thinks that this mission could takes decades and maybe a century to figure out. Even after all this criticism, many people are interested because water has been found on other planets, such as Mercury. Water can then be turned into hydrogen which maybe could allow the ship to travel making its own fuel for the return trip, which would make the mission a lot easier, and even more likely, it would succeed.
This article is important to society because if there are riches in space that we are able to obtain then maybe we would be able to use this money for even more advanced research in the field of astronomy to maybe land a man on Mars or even send a satellite out of our solar system. If this mission were to work, then other scientific researchers could design more ships or more ideas that can cost less than ten thousand dollars that can get us up into space to explore the unknown. Also, this article states that there is water on Mercury, and the water can then be converted into hydrogen which can then be used for fuel for an asteroid. This maybe one day can be explored into, and would be every cheap if instead of using fuel, we could just use water instead. If this idea is possible, maybe we could use water instead of fuel not only in space, but on Earth as well, which would greatly increase our environmental condition and could potentially save the Earth. This article contained an idea by an expert, and if this idea succeeds many changes could be made in the field of science, but maybe to the world around us.
This article has proposed a lot of wonderful ideas to society that could potentially save the world. It has said that there are scientists that are working on this idea. Even though there has been some faults in the past for another asteroid mining company, this article does a decent job of stating why you should put your trust in Planetary Resources even though there have been faults in the past, and what is different now. For example, there have been new discoveries, such as water located on Mercury which would help this mission by not having to worry about having to get this asteroid back to Earth because the water would be like fuel. This discovery has made the public more likely to buy a share in the company, and this will give the company more money to take on their ideas and eventually launch a ship into space. This article is well-written and has a lot of great ideas, but a lot of the ideas that have been proposed, such has the cost of this mission being less than ten thousand dollars, or the ships being launched within the next decade, have no evidence. There is nothing in this article that states evidence or a newly found recyclable material that will make this mission cost less than ten thousand dollars. The article does not tell us the progress the Mr. Lewicki has made on the project or even some ideas that he has worked on or even succeeded with. This article does a great job explaining his ideas that might be able to happen, but we still need evidence behind the conclusions to be sure that these conclusions are not just ideas, and that they will actually succeed.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Fallon, I think that you did a wonderful job in your summary of this article. One of the things that you did well was that you were able to summarize the article in an easy-to-understand way. After reading your current events report, I felt like I had read the article too because your summary was so thorough. In addition, you were able to present the complicated information in a way that made it seem almost simple. Another thing that you did well was transitioning. Each paragraph began and ended in a concise way, but provided substance for what you had previously stated as well. Additionally, you did a great analysis of the article. I thought it was very interesting that you noticed that although Planetary Research states many claims about its research none of them have any evidence to support it. I also learned a lot from your summary. Mostly, I learned about asteroids. I had no idea that asteroids contained metal, and certainly could not have guessed that they contained high amounts of gold as well! I also didn’t realize that asteroids could be as big as a city block! Another fact that I learned through your current events report is that Mercury has water on it. I think that’s really cool because that means that Mercury could contain life and also hold the possibility of fueling rockets. This idea of obtaining gold from asteroids seems very interesting to me, however I am skeptical. It seems odd that we have the potential to remove any part of outer space from its natural orbit and bring it down to Earth. Besides the fact that some sentences were hard to understand your review was done very well. The only thing that could make this better is just to make sure that you reread the document and to check it for commas that are out of place and for good grammar.
ReplyDeleteFallon did a great job summarizing, connecting, and critiquing her article. I was impressed by her ability to keep it interesting. She started right into the points in an exciting matter that made you want to read more. She also did a good job thinking beyond what was given and adding her own ideas. In the second paragraph she expresses a lot of good ideas. Fallon took what was given in the article and clearly really thought about the benefits that could come from getting rare minerals in space. She also did a good job pointing out improvements. All of the things she said were real issues with the article and she did a great job pointing them out. She also managed to explain things in a simple manner that can be understood by a large audience. She seemed to have taken the time to look at complicated facts and broken them down to a simple way that makes reading the summary much more enjoyable. I found the whole topic very interesting. Being able to get rocks from space and making a profit from them seems unreal. I did not know that such a quest was in action but I find it very intriguing. Fallon’s critique paragraph impressed me. When reading articles about such cool things people want to believe that it is possible. Fallon really pointed out that there was a lack of evidence and grounded the whole idea to make people think realistically. Her ability to do this is quite impressive. There is not much wrong with Fallon’s writing. She did a great job. However, I would recommend proof reading. There were some errors throughout the report that were somewhat distracting. The content was great but I think she could improve on word choice and grammar. Overall, this was a great report that brought forth a lot of interesting facts and ideas that take the article even further.
ReplyDeleteI thought that Fallon did a great job overall on her current events report about Asteroid Mining. First of all, the way the report was opened was particularly strong. By saying that the next gold rush is happening very soon and that it is in the stars, the reader is drawn in and wants to know how this is possible right off the bat. Another part of her report that was well presented was how she provided viewpoints from believers in the project and doubters of the project. She started off by talking about the hopeful project of Planetary Resources, but then got into other scientists and professors talking about the reality of the situation in cost and time frame. This allows for the reader to choose their own side and form their own beliefs on the topic, either supporting or doubting the project. A third aspect of the review that was well presented was her criticism on the article. Pointing out that there was no evidence supporting the claims made by the project makers shown in the article was a strong observation that showed how the article is not completely credible, or at least the claims made by Planetary Resources are not. This was a good point and was well presented in the end of her current events report. I was very interested in the whole idea of capturing asteroids and bringing them back to Earth. Trying to imagine a future where the norm is gathering resources from passing space rocks is very exciting to think about for the development of science. It is also huge progress to begin to not be fully dependent on Earth for resources and survival, which I find very interesting to think about. Another part of the report that I found particularly interesting was where Fallon talks about using water as a fuel for the spacecrafts. By decomposing water into hydrogen and oxygen, and then using the hydrogen as fuel, spaceships would be able to get more fuel in space, as long as there is water available where they are landed. I found this interesting, because if a method is discovered where this process can actually be used, then that could not only impact the asteroid mining business, but all space travel. We could potentially send humans further into space, have return missions of rovers, etc. Although the report by Fallon was very strong overall, there was room for improvement. I thought that some parts of the report were confusing, so some sections could have been written and displayed in a more clear way. Proofreading a little more closely could be a solution to this small problem, but other than that, the report was very good.
ReplyDelete