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Annotated Bibliography On Nasa's Journey To Mars

Decent Essays

Annotated Bibliography
Works Cited

“NASA's Journey to Mars.” Edited by Gary Daines, NASA, NASA, 1 Dec. 2014, www.nasa.gov /content/nasas-journey-to-mars/.
This article is from the website controlled by NASA, the US government agency in charge of astronautical research and exploration. All of NASA’s activities are funded by federal taxes, and this website’s aim is to inform citizens about what the agency plans to do with that money. This article outlines NASA’s goals relating to Mars travels, including what technologies need to be developed, when the mission may occur, and why such travels are considered important. The article mainly consists of unbiased facts, but does attempt to portray a positive image of government-funded space exploration. …show more content…

The cartoon is meant to display how with the current state of science, a Mars mission is only truly possible on reality TV. It is part of an article published online by Wired, a trusted source of news about science, technology, and other aspects of geek culture. The article is about Mars One, a private company wishing to colonize Mars, and it further discusses how a mission to Mars would require significant advances to modern science, and therefore, a large amount of funding. Wired is a trustworthy, largely unbiased source, but it is not clear whether this image truly reflects how far away scientists are from a Mars mission. This source is useful because it forces the reader to think about whether a government-funded mission to Mars is plausible, considering how much work there is to be done. However, one could also interpret the cartoon by saying since it is such a large job, Mars missions should be left to the government, instead of smaller …show more content…

It was written by Charles D. Walker, an aeronautical engineer who used to work on space shuttles. In this letter, he conveys his opinion about what role NASA should play in sending people to Mars. Overall, Walker holds that while private companies can play a role, NASA must be the one to lead future space exploration missions, because of the financial nature of such ventures. The publisher of this article is a trusted major news source, and since he is a former astronaut, the author is likely very knowledge about the topic, with no obvious bias. Because this source provides perspective on the issue of private vs. government-funded space exploration, it could easily be synthesized into an essay on that

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