AR2100
Nov 13, 2015
Undergraduate / Saving the world... from outside the world. -CommonApp Personal Essay [8]
I finally got a chance to revisit this essay. I added a new part and moved some things around but my word count is at 765. Could someone also help me bring it down to 650? Id appreciate it thank you.
When I was around 13 years old, my family and I visited Pakistan, my parent's home country. Driving through the streets one night, I remember looking out the window and seeing homeless people gathered around a small fire surrounded by filth and trash. Power grids for entire neighborhoods would be down rendering families without heat or light. My cousin noticed the sad look on my face. Getting back to their house, my cousin motioned at me and led me to the roof. He told me to come lay down with him. I was a little skeptical at first but as I looked up I was instantly dumbfounded. Numerous little sparkling stars were scattered across the dark sky. The awe on my face made it obvious that this wasn't something I got to see every night back at my own home. We sat there gazing up at the stars for what seemed like a lifetime before returning inside.
The next few years were filled with me obsessing over all things space. Hours of my day were spent researching. I would go outside every night and just look up at the sky in hopes of seeing the same beautiful star lit sky I had once witnessed. I had no doubt in my mind that I was definitely going to be an astronaut. But there was one major obstacle with this: adults. Every adult, from parents to teachers, told me the same thing: "you have a wonderful imagination but try to focus on some real career choices". My parents once told me that I needed to start being practical with my career choices. "The world needs doctors, not astronauts. You need to get your head out of the sky and come back to earth." It crushed me but my undying determination prevented me from giving up on the one thing I spent every waking moment obsessing over.
When it comes to saving the world, looking up to the sky is not always the first response, though it really should be. A problem that every nation on Earth faces is a lack of resources. This mainly is caused by the exponential growth of population and unemployment. But what if countries came together on a project that could possibly solve both these problems? This is where I suggest a manned Mission to Mars. With a restarted space program we could send hundreds of thousands of unemployed to Mars in the hopes of colonizing the planet. Of course we'd have to re-train the jobless or homeless for this mission; but this retraining effort would only benefit us by creating hundreds of new jobs. Though this whole idea might seem a little far-fetched there are things that are easily achievable right now with a fresh new interest in space exploration.
One of the most practical things that would come from the launch of a new space program would be the accelerated advancement of technology. For example simply look back at the Space Race of the 1960's. In this technological race to the moon NASA developed the basis for revolutionary new technologies. Things such as the GPS, satellite communications, and personal laptop all exist thanks to the technological breakthroughs back then. Now imagine having to prepare for a longer trip to Mars. There would be no limits to the things we might build.
So technology is one aspect, the second would be resources. Going to Mars, there's no doubt that there would be a whole lot of resources Earth could use, but most of those will be needed in the efforts of Martian colonization. One place we can look at is in the asteroids above. A lot of asteroids are extremely dense with carbon. These can be burned for huge amounts of fuel. Additionally, there are also ways to obtain green energy such as through nuclear reactors. The biggest problem with that is getting rid of the radioactive waste. If better technology made going up into space more cost-effective then we could store this waste somewhere harmless such as on the moon or on other natural satellites.
I know that I have some pretty lofty dreams and ambitions for my Mars project. Somehow though, I feel that I would not have been blessed to have this kind of imagination and concern for our world if I had not spent that fateful night on the rooftop of my cousin's home in Pakistan.
After that night I knew how I wanted to leave my mark on humanity, after all it only takes one small step for a man to make a giant leap for mankind.
I finally got a chance to revisit this essay. I added a new part and moved some things around but my word count is at 765. Could someone also help me bring it down to 650? Id appreciate it thank you.
When I was around 13 years old, my family and I visited Pakistan, my parent's home country. Driving through the streets one night, I remember looking out the window and seeing homeless people gathered around a small fire surrounded by filth and trash. Power grids for entire neighborhoods would be down rendering families without heat or light. My cousin noticed the sad look on my face. Getting back to their house, my cousin motioned at me and led me to the roof. He told me to come lay down with him. I was a little skeptical at first but as I looked up I was instantly dumbfounded. Numerous little sparkling stars were scattered across the dark sky. The awe on my face made it obvious that this wasn't something I got to see every night back at my own home. We sat there gazing up at the stars for what seemed like a lifetime before returning inside.
The next few years were filled with me obsessing over all things space. Hours of my day were spent researching. I would go outside every night and just look up at the sky in hopes of seeing the same beautiful star lit sky I had once witnessed. I had no doubt in my mind that I was definitely going to be an astronaut. But there was one major obstacle with this: adults. Every adult, from parents to teachers, told me the same thing: "you have a wonderful imagination but try to focus on some real career choices". My parents once told me that I needed to start being practical with my career choices. "The world needs doctors, not astronauts. You need to get your head out of the sky and come back to earth." It crushed me but my undying determination prevented me from giving up on the one thing I spent every waking moment obsessing over.
When it comes to saving the world, looking up to the sky is not always the first response, though it really should be. A problem that every nation on Earth faces is a lack of resources. This mainly is caused by the exponential growth of population and unemployment. But what if countries came together on a project that could possibly solve both these problems? This is where I suggest a manned Mission to Mars. With a restarted space program we could send hundreds of thousands of unemployed to Mars in the hopes of colonizing the planet. Of course we'd have to re-train the jobless or homeless for this mission; but this retraining effort would only benefit us by creating hundreds of new jobs. Though this whole idea might seem a little far-fetched there are things that are easily achievable right now with a fresh new interest in space exploration.
One of the most practical things that would come from the launch of a new space program would be the accelerated advancement of technology. For example simply look back at the Space Race of the 1960's. In this technological race to the moon NASA developed the basis for revolutionary new technologies. Things such as the GPS, satellite communications, and personal laptop all exist thanks to the technological breakthroughs back then. Now imagine having to prepare for a longer trip to Mars. There would be no limits to the things we might build.
So technology is one aspect, the second would be resources. Going to Mars, there's no doubt that there would be a whole lot of resources Earth could use, but most of those will be needed in the efforts of Martian colonization. One place we can look at is in the asteroids above. A lot of asteroids are extremely dense with carbon. These can be burned for huge amounts of fuel. Additionally, there are also ways to obtain green energy such as through nuclear reactors. The biggest problem with that is getting rid of the radioactive waste. If better technology made going up into space more cost-effective then we could store this waste somewhere harmless such as on the moon or on other natural satellites.
I know that I have some pretty lofty dreams and ambitions for my Mars project. Somehow though, I feel that I would not have been blessed to have this kind of imagination and concern for our world if I had not spent that fateful night on the rooftop of my cousin's home in Pakistan.
After that night I knew how I wanted to leave my mark on humanity, after all it only takes one small step for a man to make a giant leap for mankind.
