William Bogatyrenko November
1, 2014
Core Chemistry Current
Events 5
The article I read was called Virgin
Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo Crashes in New Setback for Commercial Spaceflight,
by Kenneth Chang and John Schwartz. It
was about how the rocket plane SpaceShipTwo, financed by Richard Branson’s
Virgin Galactic and designed and built by the company Scaled Composites,
crashed on Friday during a test flight in the Mojave Desert. Virgin Galactic is one of the leaders in the
space tourism business, and SpaceShipTwo was one of the test planes for
commercial flights into the edge of space.
Richard Branson was hoping to begin tourist flights next spring, and
people, such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Justin Bieber, have already reserved
spots on the plane, which cost between $200,000 and $250,000 per seat. On the test flight, SpaceShipTwo was carried
to 50,000 feet by WhiteKnightTwo, a larger plane, and then dropped. SpaceShipTwo was using a new plastic-based
fuel, as opposed to the earlier rubber-based fuel used by Virgin Galactic. All of the non-fueled test flights had been a
success, but this was only the fourth time the spacecraft was powered and its motor
was ignited. Even though these accidents
are scary, they are not deterring ticket holders.
This article is significant to
humanity because it shows how technologically advanced humanity is. There will be commercial space flights very
soon, and hopefully the ticket prices will be a lot cheaper than $200,000 in a
few years. Once we start commercial
flights into space, we could go farther into space than just the edge, where
you don’t have an orbit. Maybe in the
future, there will be commercial flights to the moon. This would allow for more research on foreign
planets as well. For example, NASA could
send humans to mars and research materials there. This could lead to a new chapter in space
discovery. We could develop new technologies
that allow astronauts to go farther into space than ever before, maybe leading them
to discover a new planet that is able to be inhabited by humans.
The authors could have done a lot more
things to make this article better. For
example, they could have given examples of the problems this crash created. The authors also could have given examples or
predictions of the setbacks this crash will create for Virgin Galactic and
Scaled Composites, as well as what competitors Virgin Galactic has, how close
they are to a commercial flight, and how this crash will help or hurt
them. For example, the crash might help
Virgin Galactic’s competitors if their test flights have not yet crashed—they could
say that their space flights are safer, causing Virgin Galactic to lose
customers and their competitors to gain customers. The crash might hurt other commercial space
flight companies because people might think that all space flights are dangerous,
causing all of the companies to lose business.
For my current events review, I read William Bogatyrenko's review on "Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo Crashes in New Setback for Commercial Spaceflight". William did a good job on summarizing and explaining the article as well as how it impacts society. One thing that I really liked in his review was his explanations. Will had well explained what Virgin Galactic was so the reader could have a better insight and idea on what this article was about. Something else that I liked was how he described the SpaceShip Two and what happened before it crashed for example, how high it was in the air and the plastic based fuel that it was using. It was strange how all of the non fueled flights were a success until the fuel was powered on. And lastly, I liked how he explained what he thought the next step for humanity and space is at this point. I really was able to see where he got that perspective and I agree with him. I agree that these flights and these spaceships will be fixed quickly and grow because the growth of technology will not slow down and it will keep on going. Even though I thought that his review was very good, I think that there were some things that he could improve on. Some of his punctuation errors made some sentences confusing to read. Some of the sentences were difficult to understand but this was mostly in the first paragraph. A second thing that Will could have improved on was his sentence structure. Like the punctuation mistakes it made it difficult to understand. Luckily this was also only for a few of the sentences. One thing that shocked me was how these flight issues were not lowering ticket sales. I know that after I heard this story I would not want to go on a flight that may possibly kill me and I am risking my life. I would rather be safe and not go on it than hurt myself. Overall, I think Will did a good job with his summary, critique and review.
ReplyDeleteFor my review of a current events response, I chose to read William Bogatyrenko’s response to the article “Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo Crashes in New Setback for Commercial Spaceflight.” In his response, William did some things very well, but there were also some things that he could have done better. One thing that I really liked about his response was the fact that he showed how the disaster with the spaceship could affect, not only Virgin Galactic, but other spaceflight companies too. This helped to better explain the consequences of the crash. I also liked the fact that William showed how space travel might affect the average person in the future. This really made me feel as if I had a personal connection to the topic of William’s response, and it made reading the response much more interesting. Lastly, I really liked how William gave background information about the details of the spaceship and the details of the company that made it. Instead of just talking about the accident itself, William provided much more information and this helped me to better understand the topic of the response. Despite liking all of these things about William’s response, I feel that a couple of things could have been done better. For example, in some instances William used poor grammar and if this were fixed, it would improve the response greatly. In addition, I feel that William’s first paragraph was very jumbled and that the ideas were not in a very comprehensive order. I believe that if the order of some of the ideas were switched around a little, and a few details were added, the opening paragraph would be improved immensely. This is all that I noticed about William’s actual writing, but something about the topic he was writing about really impressed me. This is the fact that by as early as next spring, commercial space flights may come into existence, and normal people will travel into space. I was very impressed by this because I did not realize that we, as humans, were this advanced in the area of space travel. I find it amazing that without any qualifications, someone like me could travel into space in the near future. Overall, I really enjoyed William’s response and the topic that he wrote about was extremely interesting.
ReplyDeleteThe response William Bogatyrenko wrote in response to the article he read was very good. One part of the review I thought was good was how he explained how the the crash of SpaceShipTwo hurt the market for space tourism, a new and developing market. A second thing I liked was how he was able to incorporate his own predictions about the industry smoothly into his article. A third thing I liked was how he explained what might have caused the crash of this ship. While his article was mostly good, there were a few things that I didn’t like. ne thing I felt he could improve upon was incorporating quotes into your review, as they make it sound much more professional. A second thing I felt he could improve upon was that he didn’t really talk about was how the crash impacted civilian life, or if anyone died from the crash. One thing that really stood out to me was how much closer we are to sending commercial flights into space then I thought we were.
ReplyDeleteI read William’s review of Virgin Galactic’s Spaceship Two Crashes in New Setback for Commercial Spaceflight. One of the things I liked about the review was that he took all of the facts possible from the article and put them in the review. The other thing I liked is that he said why the article was important to humanity in many different ways. The final thing I like is that he said why he liked the article and what he hopes for private space travel in the future.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things that I thought William could have improved on is that he did not mention that anyone died in the crash, which to me seems to be an important fact. He also did not add detail to the fact that Virgin Galactic is one of the leaders in Spaceship tourism when most people do not know what spaceship tourism is.
The one thing I found astonishing that I learned from the article is that they explained exactly what they were selling tickets for which is taking six passengers to the edge of the atmosphere.
By Drew Judkins
I read William’s review and I was really impressed by his work. His summary was very good, and I liked how he included a lot of detail about commercial space travel in the near future. I also liked that he included a little bit of background information about the Virgin Galactic Company, the owner Richard Branson and how people liked Justin Bieber and Leonardo DiCaprio have already reserved seats. I really liked William’s paragraph about the relevance this new technological advance may have on human’s in the near future. He really dove in deep to the effects of commercial space travel, and even went so far to say that the exploration of foreign planets could come out of it. Lastly, I liked how William critiqued the article by saying both specific things he liked about the article, and specific things he disliked about the article, such as the author excluding the effect that this crash has on Virgin Galactic and their competitors.
ReplyDeleteAlthough this was a great review, there were also some errors that I found. First of all, William happens to start with an extremely boring introduction sentence: “I read… by …”, and this is very likely to turn away potential readers. He could have started by saying something like: “Do you want to go to space? Well in the near future, you may not have to be an astronaut to embark on an interstellar journey!!” Also, William had a good summary, but it was missing some key aspects. For example, he failed to include why the spacecraft crashed in the first place, and how much this crash could affect the progress of commercial space travel happening.
I really liked this review written by William and I learned a lot from it. First, I had no idea that anyone was even thinking about commercial space travel, so this review opened my eyes to that aspect of current events. I also didn’t realize how expensive a spacecraft ticket is, even if it is to outer space. $250,000 is a lot of money! I enjoyed learning about this new topic, and I enjoyed reading William’s review a lot.