Essay On Success In Space And America's New Spacecraft

What is new in the space travel world? Two article excerpts by author Cameron Keady “A Success in Space” and “America’s New Spacecraft” describe two space crafts with very different missions. The purpose of this essay is to explain the purpose of each mission and then argue which mission was the more successful. The first mission, as described in “A Success in Space,” used a small probe called the Philae lander, which had been dropped by Rosetta, a much larger craft that had been traveling 10 years prior to the drop of Philae. Philae, which is “about the size of a washing machine,” landed on the comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko, also known as 67p. Its mission was to gather “valuable information about the origins of our solar system and how it evolved.” While on the comet, Philae tweeted a photo back to Rosetta about the breathtaking view. It took an entire decade to get to 67p, but Philae’s stay there will be short – only about 64 hours. However, Rosetta “will continue to travel with 67p, sending information about the comet back to Earth for as long as it can.”

Its mission was designed to “test many of the most vital elements for human spaceflight . . . and provide critical data needed to improve Orion’s design for reduce rusks to future mission crews.” Even though the International Space Station is several miles into space, the Orion’s peak altitude was “more than 14 times farther from Earth” than the ISS. Both the flight and the landing were perfect. With the goal of eventually taking astronauts back to the moon or to Mars, Orion’s experimental voyage was considered a success. It tested the “capabilities of the spacecraft to ensure it is suitable for a future manned mission to the Red