1 Two Waters Review Student Essays from Spring 2015 Volume 1, Issue 1 Scottsdale Community College English Department 2 All student works collected here are Copyright © 2015 by their respective authors. Licenses for publication in Two Waters Review by the English Department of Scottsdale Community College are on file at the college. Cover image: “TWR Cover 1.1” by Matthew Bloom is a mashup of two images in the public domain taken by NASA (accessed via Wikimedia Commons: http://commons.wikimedia.org) and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Volume 1, Issue 1 September 2015 3 Table of Contents Outer Space 4……Eljana Nikolli – “NASA: Hovering in Space” 13…. Mary Byron – “A Progression for Humanity” 22…. Kevin C. Abblett – “Reevaluating the Legacy of Egyptian Astronomy” Terrestrial Space 32…. Drew Carey – “Modern Day Slavery” 40…. Connor Murphy – “The Environmental, Economic, and Contamination Issues of Wild vs. Farmed Salmon” Inner Space 47…. Corinne Arnold – “The Health Cost of High Fructose Corn Syrup” 54…. Jennifer Beichner – “Conflicted Agreement: Improving Discourse within the Abortion Debate” 64…. Madeline Waddell – “Freeing the Gaze” 4 Eljana Nikolli Dr. Jared L. Aragona English 102 8 May 2015 NASA: Hovering in Space On November 12th 2014, the European Space Agency (ESA) announced the first ever landing of a space probe on the surface of a comet. According to the ESA, “Rosetta was launched on 2 March 2004 and travelled 6.4 billion kilometers through the Solar System before arriving at the comet on 6 August 2014.” It then took months until a successful landing was accomplished. In addition, a mission to send the first humans on Mars is already on the works. According to Mars One, the non-profit organization behind the mission, the plan is to send the first humans to Mars in 2024. However, this mission is being based on current space exploration technology with the hopes that by the time the mission is ready to launch, more advanced technology will be available. Projects like these have been known to cost a lot of money, and many argue that the money NASA is given is going to waste and it should be used elsewhere, as in education and healthcare. However, we all know that many of the humankind’s achievements, regarding space or not, have been successful due to research, and research most often needs money to happen. Indeed, many of NASA’s biggest achievements, like the moon landing, have happened because NASA had the US government’s financial support. Therefore, the US government should continue and even increase NASA’s financial support since the National Aeronautics and Space Administration plays an integral role in the country’s financial, technological, cultural, and scientific development, and in humanity’s safety as well. To begin with, the public does not have a clear vision of NASA’s financials. According to Mary Lynne Dittmar, Dittmar Associates, Inc. CEO and Senior Policy Advisor at Center for the 5 Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), “the public perception of NASA’s budget is grossly inflated relative to actual dollars.” We have often heard about probes lost in space or equipment that cost millions of dollars being destroyed due to miscalculations or unexpected circumstances, and that angers people since that money could have been used for something else. However, people do not have the right perception when it comes to large amounts of money. The majority of the population compares large sums to numbers they understand, and they cannot comprehend that in the much larger scale of the national fund seven and eight figure amounts are miniscule. Subsequently, the public does not realize that NASA’s budget occupies an exceptionally small percentage of the national budget. Also according Mary Dittmar, a study showed people believe that about 24% of the national budget is allotted to NASA. However, Columbia University Professor Howard S. Friedman, who is also a Statistician and Health Economist for the United Nations, says that aside from a rush of funding in the mid 1960’s, which reached about 4.5% of the total federal budget, NASA’s budget has been significantly dropping since then. According to Friedman, NASA’s budget for the 2015 fiscal year is estimated to be about 0.47% of the national budget. To put this into better perspective, for every dollar the US population pays in taxes, only about half a penny goes to NASA. Furthermore, considering more cuts on NASA’s budget would lead to additional issues for the agency and its programs. In his book “Mysteries of Outer Space”, Thomas K. Grose says that since its creation, the International Space Station hasn’t achieved any of its goals of space exploration and micro gravitational research. On the other hand the station is costing more and more money each year. Grose says that, “A diminished floating laboratory doesn’t excite the public’s imagination, and that gives lawmakers plenty of maneuvering room to keep NASA’s budget tight, which leads to more downscaled projects” (66). In an effort to appeal to the public, politicians many times succumb to the public’s demands, and budget cuts for NASA are one of them. Consequently, 6 the space agency has not reached its potential due to past budget cuts. These budget cuts have been causing and continue to cause problems for more of NASA’s ongoing projects which in turn could potentially lead to even more cuts, thus, entering a vicious circle that could lead to the agency’s demise. Nevertheless, NASA’s technological achievements have changed our lives dramatically. According to the article “NASA Spinoff 2015 Features Space Technology Making Life Better on Earth,” “NASA technologies are being used to locate underground water in some of the driest places on the Earth, build quieter and more fuel-efficient airplanes, and create shock absorbers that brace buildings in earthquakes.” In fact, these are only some of the NASA spinoffs that have changes our lives for the better. NASA has largely influenced many more areas of our lives such as weather forecasting, the medical field, and others. To start with, NASA’s satellites have saved thousands of lives because of the detailed and timely weather forecasting they can provide. According to the National Research Council, NASA has powerfully contributed in the study of Earth’s atmosphere, oceans, and surface through use of its satellites. Also, nasa.org provides us with detailed tracking of dangerous storms. According to nasa.gov, when hurricane Sandy hit the east coast, “the satellite data provided detailed information such as the size and direction of the winds, observations of the cloud structures near the storm and the amount and location of storm’s rainfall.” Even though there was a lot of destruction and many died, and even more were injured during hurricane Sandy, the consequences would have probably been much worse if not for NASA’s contribution to weather forecasting and tracking. Secondly, NASA has made many contributions in the development and/ or advancement of many technologies used by the medical field, like telemedicine. In the article “A Brief History of NASA’s Contributions to Telemedicine”, 7 The dominant medical question prior to Yuri Gagarin’s successful spaceflight in April 1961 was whether the human body could function in space. […] To determine if this would indeed be a problem, both the U.S. and the Soviets performed a number of test flights using animals attached to medical monitoring systems, which sent the animal’s biometric data to scientists on Earth via a telemetric link. [..] The focus on possible limitations of the human body forced the agency to take a technologically focused approach to telemedicine. It took years for telemedicine to function the way it does today. Now, the lives of many people that live in remote areas of the country and of the rest of the world have been saved due to this technology. And in addition to telemedicine, NASA has contributed in the invention of other very important medical devices. According to Linda C. Brinson, the VAD (Left Ventricular Assist Device), which keeps patients alive while they await for a heart transplant, light technology that lessens the painful side effects of chemotherapy, and ear thermometers are a few of the many more technologies that NASA has contributed to medicine. A lot of people are alive today because the VAD was able to buy them some time until the right donor was found. Also, cancer patients can now suffer a little bit less during their chemotherapy sessions. Technologies as these simply make the hardships in life a little bit more bearable. In addition, NASA has added to our quality of life with the invention of things like highway safety grooving. According to nasa.gov, safer highways were a spinoff of a program developed to reduce accidents on wet airways. Due to this technology, grooving highway concrete has probably prevented more accidents and saved more lives than we can imagine. Another NASA invention contributing to a higher quality of life is the memory foam. According to nasa.gov, “[memory foam was] the result of a program designed to develop a padding 8 concept to improve crash protection for airplane passengers.” Not everyone knows about the origins of the memory foam, but everyone appreciates the comfort temper mattresses pillows, memory foam insoles, etc. provide. Additionally, our everyday lives are becoming more and more futuristic with every passing moment. According to nasa.gov, a program that was initially designed to enable astronauts to control devices on spaceships and stations remotely, resulted in the invention of internet connected wall ovens. People can now not only cook meals from a distance but they can also lock and unlock doors, turn on the shower so it’s ready when they arrive, check their home when on vacation to ensure it doesn’t get broken into, and many more.