Galuluta
Jul 9, 2018
Undergraduate / Common App Application — Prompt 6 2018-19 "A Lifelong Fascination" - The depths of cosmos [2]
Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?
My first essay, so a lot of things might be off - please do point out(that's what I'm here for after all)
Thank you.
It all began quite a long time ago. I was nine or ten years old. My father would often take me and my younger brother on summer holiday to Crimea, where, in the outskirts of Sevastopol, our distant relatives lived. I didn't enjoy their company as much as Dad did, but there was one thing that stuck to me and never let go since.
One day, he brought me a star atlas as a gift. I didn't pay much attention to the actual maps, since they were mainly white dots on a dark navy blue background - nothing of great interest to a little boy - but over a week or so I scrutinised every page that contained at least some information about what the dots meant. I learned the entire life cycle of a star and various properties of the planets orbiting the Sun. When I finally decided to put the maps to use, I was left breathless by how the night sky, chaotic in its beauty, was suddenly brought to order in my eyes.
The depths of cosmos have always captivated me since then. Living in a country that once was the pioneer of space exploration, I aspired to be like the great Korolyov. I wanted to build rockets that would lift off the ground, leaving it shuddering. They would pierce the blue sky and travel to places where no one has ever been before. They would carry satellites and rovers, crew and supplies, and someday, tourists or even colonists. This was my dream, my first and greatest ambition since I embraced the night sky, full of stars as it was.
And I was utterly devastated to see my homeland stagnating in this area. The country that once launched a person into space before anyone else did is now barely afloat in the space industry, mainly converting military-grade rockets to launch satellites. Seeing such a grand legacy being turned into a pathetic moneymaker with no real research potential made me feel like I didn't belong there. Every day I urged for ambitious projects to dream of working on.
And so I turned to the other side of the globe to fulfill this need. America turned out to be a Klondike for me; after following Roskosmos's futile efforts for a couple of years I was overwhelmed by everything that NASA, SpaceX and others were doing. And now, every time I need inspiration, I take another look at such projects as BFR, SLS and Mars colonisation and my brain goes into overdrive, making me work even harder to reach my dream.
I became captivated by the mysterious abyss of cosmos at a young age, and now I stand before my greatest challenge. One day, I hope, I will work on something colossal, knowing that history has its eyes on me. I will put all the effort I can in order to leave a legacy not for my motherland, not for any other, but for all of humankind.
Describe a topic, idea, or concept you find so engaging that it makes you lose all track of time. Why does it captivate you? What or who do you turn to when you want to learn more?
My first essay, so a lot of things might be off - please do point out(that's what I'm here for after all)
Thank you.
the mysterious abyss of cosmos
It all began quite a long time ago. I was nine or ten years old. My father would often take me and my younger brother on summer holiday to Crimea, where, in the outskirts of Sevastopol, our distant relatives lived. I didn't enjoy their company as much as Dad did, but there was one thing that stuck to me and never let go since.
One day, he brought me a star atlas as a gift. I didn't pay much attention to the actual maps, since they were mainly white dots on a dark navy blue background - nothing of great interest to a little boy - but over a week or so I scrutinised every page that contained at least some information about what the dots meant. I learned the entire life cycle of a star and various properties of the planets orbiting the Sun. When I finally decided to put the maps to use, I was left breathless by how the night sky, chaotic in its beauty, was suddenly brought to order in my eyes.
The depths of cosmos have always captivated me since then. Living in a country that once was the pioneer of space exploration, I aspired to be like the great Korolyov. I wanted to build rockets that would lift off the ground, leaving it shuddering. They would pierce the blue sky and travel to places where no one has ever been before. They would carry satellites and rovers, crew and supplies, and someday, tourists or even colonists. This was my dream, my first and greatest ambition since I embraced the night sky, full of stars as it was.
And I was utterly devastated to see my homeland stagnating in this area. The country that once launched a person into space before anyone else did is now barely afloat in the space industry, mainly converting military-grade rockets to launch satellites. Seeing such a grand legacy being turned into a pathetic moneymaker with no real research potential made me feel like I didn't belong there. Every day I urged for ambitious projects to dream of working on.
And so I turned to the other side of the globe to fulfill this need. America turned out to be a Klondike for me; after following Roskosmos's futile efforts for a couple of years I was overwhelmed by everything that NASA, SpaceX and others were doing. And now, every time I need inspiration, I take another look at such projects as BFR, SLS and Mars colonisation and my brain goes into overdrive, making me work even harder to reach my dream.
I became captivated by the mysterious abyss of cosmos at a young age, and now I stand before my greatest challenge. One day, I hope, I will work on something colossal, knowing that history has its eyes on me. I will put all the effort I can in order to leave a legacy not for my motherland, not for any other, but for all of humankind.