In a Dome in Hawaii, a Mission to Mars
Chang,
Kenneth. "In a Dome in Hawaii, a Mission to Mars." The New York
Times. The New York Times, 20 Oct. 2014. Web. 22 Oct. 2014.
This article is about six people who
volunteered to be “guinea pigs” for NASA. Their mission: to live with each
other for eight months.Their base is a huge dome, situated on top of the
Hawaiian volcano, Mauna Loa. With its 36 feet in diameter and two story
building size, it does not go unseen. The goal of this mission is to examine
how well a small group of people, isolated from all civilization, can get along
and work together. For eight months, Martha Lenio, Jocelyn Dunn, Sophie Milam,
Allen Mirkadyrov, Mr. Scheibelhut, and Zak Wilson will learn how to work
together with limited resources. They all have a different backgrounds,
entrepreneurs, engineers, graduate student and even war veterans. All of them
think of this experiment as a great opportunity and are excited to start. But
the experiment will only start in a few months, when the fact that they are
shut away from everything hits them. Mr. Scheibelhut said he knows that there
will be unpleasant times. “Eight months — you’re going to have real conflicts
you’re going to have to work out,” he said. “Scientifically speaking, it’s
going to be really interesting to see what happens.” And this is what it is all
about. When astronauts are shut inside spaceships, the isolation can lead to
depression and the mission can go out of control. Furthermore, something called
the “third-quarter syndrome” can start to happen. When people are shut out from
the world, they start going into routines which become more and more tedious
every day, this is a bad thing to have while on a mission, because in the end
the astronaut stops performing well and becomes unhealthy. “Right now, the
psychological risks are still not completely understood and not completely
corrected for,” said Kimberly Binsted, a professor of information and computer
sciences at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, “NASA is not going to go until
we solve this.”
This mission is important and relevant to
society because if we learn how to take care of the astronauts while they are
on a spaceship then there will be less risks of them been unhealthy when they
come back. However, this mission does not only apply to Mars missions, since
the objective is to learn how humans support and live each other, this
experiment can be applied to wars for example. During those times, soldiers are
shut out from the world and have to live in small places with each others. If
we know ways to make their time in those cramped spaces less a burden, then
they will be be happier and able to perform better.
Overall, the article was well written because the writer used a clear
and logical way of writing. The fact that he used many inputs from the people
actually going through the experiment, helped explain the experiment and what
was the feeling towards it. While reading we didn’t get the feeling of being
overwhelmed because of the simplicity and organized way of the writing. In
addition, there was a flow to the writing, the ideas did not come out suddenly,
without any explanations. However, the way the paragraphs were formed was a
little bit weird. Since each paragraphs were about two sentences long, it was a
bit tough to understand. To make this better the writer could have put some
paragraphs together.
Overall Chloe did a good job on her review. I thought that she specifically did a great job explaining the experiment in depth. She included many specific details and quotes that help the author interpret her writing. Also, she included the reasoning for this experiment and how it benefits the world of science. This is useful information that explained why this “torturous” experiment was taking place. In addition, she did a good job giving definitions for vocab words that many would not know the meaning to. For example, she included an explanation of what “third-quarter syndrome” was. Although Chloe overall did a great job on her review, she still had some room for improvement. First, her article did not directly relate to earth science. Although, she did tie the experiment to astronomy, I think that the experiment was more of a psychological test. In addition, I think that Chloe could have explained in more depth on how this will affect our everyday lives. Overall, Chloe did a great job on her review. This experiment seems so fascinating and I have never heard about an experiment like this before. I would like to hear about what the results were!
ReplyDeleteChloe did a fantastic job reviewing this article! I was very impressed with the idea of this experiment. It is an interesting thing for scientists to be researching and I would love to see what the outcome is. I also was interested by the purpose of this experiment and its effect on society. I wash't aware that astronauts get lonely when they are in space. Its not something I constantly think about. Finally, I was impressed with the way the article itself was written. It was very scientific and not so much just reporting facts. I wish that more articles were like this! I think that Chloe gave some very in depth details that helped me better understand what this article was about. An example of this is in the first paragraph where she was describing the area in which the experiment is being held. She didn't just say it was large, she gave proof and noted how it was "36 feet in diameter and two story building size." I also really liked how Chloe provided back up for her explanations with quotes. Throughout her review, she had multiple quotes said by doctors or scientists who were conducting this experiment. I felt more assured knowing an expert's opinion on this matter. One question I had about this article was how the people who the experiment is being conducted on where chosen. Did they volunteer? Were they chosen out of a hat? I think that this question could be answered by simply 'Googling' the answer. I'm sure that it would come up somewhere.
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