Scholarship / "age of exploration" - Private space exploration activities [2]

Prompt: 1. Private companies are rapidly entering into space exploration activities that were formerly undertaken by national
governments. Is this a desirable development? Explain your answer.

I'm also over by 60 words. So if anything in my essay is unnecessary, please don't hesitate to tell me. It also formatted weirdly

Our "age of exploration" will be no different from the Age of Discovery if we allow it. Similar to how the European explorers' perceived the ocean, when we view the vast spectrum of space, observing the countless stars and the dark abyss that engulfs them, we interpret it as a vast unknown. This unknown, though, does not discourage us, it siren calls us to venture beyond the realm of certainty, to examine its composition and purpose. Our fellow European explorers were pushed to explore what they believed to be an endless territory of water because of these same motives, because humans are naturally predisposed to acquire knowledge. And to deny a human the opportunity to examine and study any subject of their preference, in general, is a denial of their humanity, a denial of their request for knowledge, and a denial of any progression.

Anything that we learn is useful, the problem is where to apply the knowledge that we have gained. Nevertheless, once an apt placement is found, progression launches like a rocket. In the case of our time period's cousin, the Age Discovery, they created the Columbian Exchange, which established the beginnings of globalization and disseminated useful staple crops that contributed to the mushrooming and sustaining of the human population. We owe much of our age's technological advancements to our "age of exploration." Lives would have literally been lost if our push for exploration was inert. Patients with failing hearts owe their lives to the defibrillator and the Ventricular Assist Device (VAD), which sustains the blood circulation of critically ill heart transplant patients until a donor heart is available. Drivers can worry less about hydroplaning or skidding because of the creation of safety grooving for our highway system. NASA, however, has not only created technologies that ensure life and safety; they also invented tools that allow the simple comforts. Due to NASA's innovation in robotics and shock absorbent materials, amputees are more able. A mother is able to confidently feed her baby, knowing that the baby food has nutritional value. And the masses are allowed the simple joy of television. The extra-terrestrial is simply a demanding environment that requires us to progress technologically, which then trickles down to cause improvements in medicine, engineering, and science. Those accomplishments then benefit the public. It is the only system where the trickle-down effect works.

If Marco Polo, Vasco da Gama, and Columbus did not explore, Europe would have probably remained in its economic depression. Their forging of a spice trade with the Asian countries and discovery of the silver mines of Potosi and more land were powerful contributors to assisting Europe's economic revival because people, especially merchants, were able to work. As of now, our endeavor to explore has created countless job opportunities for mathematicians, astronauts, aeronautical engineers, astrophysicists, astronomers, and rocket scientists. The Mars Curiosity Rover alone created about seven thousand jobs and paid on average a handsome sum of $357,000, according to the CNN National Review. And the money remained on Earth, allowing the NASA workers to help grease the wheels of the economy. These intellectually demanding job opportunities are very selective when choosing a potential candidate though, which is why an emphasis on education and further development of the educational system are in order. This demand was also one of the factors that compelled President Obama to create the STEM education program.

"The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena" (Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Planet). And there are still more opportunities that space exploration has to offer. From the inspirational possibility of terraformation that could assist extra-terrestrial habitation to the tantalizing ability to travel forward into the future, space is our symbol of the infinite, the unlimited. It sparks questions in our heads that we cannot allow to die. Our nature is drawn to the unknown and the knowledge that it has in store. We cannot simply stop after a fraction of our journey.

Undergraduate / Requesting Critiques for Essays to University of California, Berkeley [4]

Describe the world you come from - for example, your family, community or school - and tell us how your world has shaped your dreams and aspirations.

We acknowledge that failure exists, that it is possible to fail, but never shall thoughts of complacency arise when failure has occurred. Of course, we learn from our failures and we are not so far removed from the idea of failure that we are unable to understand its purpose or how prevalent the sensation is. We are simply driven. We want to strive to become the paragon of ourselves, our crafts, and our contributions. And when failure devours our efforts, making them seem futile, we become sad...and then we realize that sadness is counterproductive and that we must strive again. It has been etched into our central dogma that if it is possible to avoid failure, avoid it. This motto that we live by has endowed us with intrinsic motivation and a conscious that perpetually demands us to improve - to improve ourselves, our crafts, our contributions. The drive in us is an inexorable force that is impossible to stop. I welcome you to my world, a world of performing arts, a world of passion, a world of self-improvement.

This environment in which I reside a substantial portion of my time is a catalyst for evolution. Even Darwin could not overlook the competition that fuels our desire to adapt and improve. We embody his theory of evolution. We parallel every word presented within the Origin of Species. The only difference is that we are much less cutthroat. No artist can survive alone. The origin of a species can, but we cannot. And if one tries to prove this axiom false, then their failure is imminent. It is because of this incentive to not fail we bond to form supportive groups to help one another. We can only succeed as a group and as a group we are only as strong as our weakest person, which is why we find it imperative to nurture and develop the respective person's skills. When I entered the world of the performing arts, I was once the weakest link. And now that I have improved exponentially in my craft due to the efforts of my superiors, it has become my duty and honor to expedite the development of people in need in my orchestra and sculpture class.

These qualities have molded me as an individual, becoming fundamental components of my personality, like two worlds colliding, morphing into one whole entity. They are not just applicable to the arts' realm, but to the world that surrounds this community. And though this environment has not directly shaped my external dreams and aspirations, it has endowed me with essential principles that will support any endeavor that I so wish. Without these values my dreams will remain deprived of a reality and my aspirations will remain fruitless. These aspects, though, granted to me by my environment - to forever learn, improve, adapt, altruistically assist and help, and to pursue the passion that ignites a flame of desire within my body - are dreams and aspirations I can only hope and yearn to maintain internally.

Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud, and how does it relate to the person you are?

Over the summer at a marine biology camp, I went seining with a group of people fairly deep within the ocean. And though I was small in size, compared to the other people seining along with me, I was determined to journey as deep into the ocean as they could. Never did the rising water give me angst because I was excited to catch a diverse batch of oceanic creatures, and the best way to ensure that was by venturing further into the mouth of the sea. Eventually, it came to a point where I had to tread water or spring off the roughly six-feet deep ocean floor with the tips of my toes, but I persisted to tug the pole of the net, maintaining my pace. I did not care that I was beginning to struggle. I just wanted to explore the ocean and examine the wildlife it carried. It was in this state of refusal and adamant behavior that something mesmerizing happened. A school of mullets, trying to avoid entanglement with the net, abruptly torpedoed from the water's surface, becoming projectiles that beamed into my face and everyone else's. Needless to say, we all had a good laugh and a remarkable experience to remember.

This disposition of mine to explore has made me a curious cat willing to poke fun at death in order to uncover the answers to questions that constantly bother me. It fuels my appetite for knowledge, especially in a scientific manner, but not exclusively. By breaking effective language down to its fundamental components, my AP Language class gave me a newfound appreciation for how language can be an effective tool of persuasion and communication. This actually represents why I enjoy exploring. It has allowed me to see parts of the whole, granting me a sense of appreciation for what I overlooked when I only saw something at face-value, oblivious to its significance. As a result, the mundane has become the extraordinary, practically removing the word and its synonyms from my vocabulary.

I find exploration in the field of science more enthralling and utterly invigorating though, because it provides an explanation for this enigma I live within - the universe. I jittered when I got to examine plankton and skin cells under a microscope because I was able to view their structure and how they functioned. I was amazed when I learned that the beach glittered at night because organisms had bioluminescence. I even ran around on the beach at night non-stop to visualize this phenomenon. I have also enjoyed the state of puzzlement that overwhelms me when I think about how the brain intuitively knows when to form an action potential that causes the contraction of a muscle.

My push to discover has kept me questioning and exploring the universe, eager to learn its anatomy and physiology. And although my head begins to hurt when I try to dissect and understand this enigma that is our universe, I persist.