Space is the final frontier, the last great unknown for humanity to explore. Beginning sixty-two miles above our seas, Space is the vast expanse that exists beyond the Earth and between all celestial bodies, a wonder that has captured the human imagination since our early ancestors first gazed up from their fires and into the stars, dreaming of exploring the cosmos. It would take thousands of generations for those dreams to be realized, when on October 4th, 1957 the first man made satellite, Sputnik 1 (“fellow world traveler”), a 184lb basketball sized aluminum ball with spiky antennas was launched aboard a repurposed intercontinental ballistic missile into low-Earth orbit, ushering in a new era for mankind, igniting a space race that inspired the minds of millions and changed the course of history. Sixty-Three years later and our interest in space exploration has only grown, with new and exciting plans and missions for humans “to boldly go where no man has gone before”, and a modern space race to build enormous, extremely powerful, and economical platforms to get to and traverse the final frontier.
“This is How the Space Race Changed the Great Power Rivalry Forever” by Martand Jha is an online article that describes the origins of the (first) space race and its overall contribution to science and technology around the world. It begins by naming and detailing a number of critical milestones hit by both the Soviet Union and the United States between 1957 and 1969, naming that year the end of the “Space Rivalry” while, like me, insisting that in many ways the space race never truly ended. The article then goes on to describe the various ways in which the U.S. and Soviet rivalry in the field of space exploration impacted all parts of society with developments in technology leading to the creation consumer products like wireless headsets, LED lighting, portable cordless vacuums, freeze-dried foods, memory foam, scratch-resistant eyeglass lenses and, even modern laptop computers, which are direct descendants of The Shuttle Portable Onboard Computer, developed in the early 1980s for the space shuttle program. Finally stating that the space race inspired future generations of scientists, explorers, and engineers.
The article from the above paragraph is authored by Martand Jha, a junior research fellow at Jawaharlal Nehru University’s School of International Studies center for Russian and Central Asian studies in New Delhi, India. Him being Indian is important to this rhetorical analysis because I believe it makes his writing less biased towards the United States or Soviet Union. The article is written on an online medium, “nationalinterest.org”, and its rhetorical purpose is to inform the reader about the global impacts of the Space Race, in an essay like genre. The language used is professional but not scientific or technical, with an educational and explanative tone, leading me to believe that the author’s targeted audience was casual readers and not people particularly interested in space exploration. With his closing statement, “In conclusion, the Space Race is one of the most iconic moments in the history of mankind. It is quite difficult to assess its full impact in the area of space research and technology. One thing is for sure though—if there had been no Space Race, then surely the world of space research and space missions would be quite different from what it is today.”(Jha) the author clearly shows his stance on the matter to be positive and persuasive.
“The Space Race is One Giant Leap for the Private Sector” is a newspaper article published by The Independent, that talks about the “new” space race around the world today, that includes not only governments competing with each other but private companies as well. The article first states the failures of NASA in modern-day, such as the huge expense that was the space shuttle program “the true cost of the order was $1.5bn”(Independent London, 26 Jan. 2020, p.3),and its failure to replace it, causing the U.S. to spend $80million dollars per seat to the Russian space agency Roscosmos to get to the International Space Station. Then the article talks about a possible cultural belief in America that the private sector is better at lowering costs than a government agency, a cultural belief that I think he shares. He details the competing efforts made by Boeing and SpaceX, two civilian ran companies, to develop systems to take American astronauts to orbit and beyond. While the author appears to favor SpaceX’s innovations, “The average graduate engineer in Boeing is well over 50 years of age. People over 50 aren’t trying to set the world on fire”(Independent) he still maintains that both are more efficient then their government ran counterparts and contrasts these companies’ recent successes, such as the development of reusable rocket boosters, and significantly reduced launch costs, with NASA’s incompetence in replicating feats they accomplished decades ago, and inability to launch humans to space for 9 years and counting.
A very recent article published only a month ago, on January 26th, 2020, and written on an online newspaper medium, “The Space Race is One Giant Leap for the Private Sector” begins with a much different stance then the first article. While Martand Jha talks positively about the “old” space race, the author of the article mentioned above, doctor and science writer Steven Cutts, has a more critical stance on the topic. He states, “the space shuttle, for example, it’s the epitome of American exceptionalism but in practice, it’s a museum piece.”(Cutts) and criticizes NASA and Roscosmos lack of innovation. However, his stance shifts when he begins to talk about Boeing and SpaceX’s accomplishments becoming less critical and more congratulatory, “There now seems little doubt that Musk(CEO of SpaceX) has brought new energy to the world of spaceflight”(Cutts). The genre is an editorial, with the purpose of showing the various strengths and weaknesses of the private space travel industry and the differences to those of government backed space agencies. The language of the article is professional and technical, using the large costs of space technologies in his arguments, “$500m per launch”, “$20m to $80m per seat”. The author uses a critical, yet excited tone “After a string of initial failures, his people seem to have mastered this process quite well. If he’s right and a typical booster stage can be used up to 10 times without major refurbishment, then the cost of space flight should fall by about 20 per cent!” aimed at an audience who already has interest in space exploration.
“The New Space Race” is an academic journal written by Chris Anderson of the National Science Teachers Association and intends to give teachers advice and new topics for exploring space travel in all science classes. It’s first line states the obvious, “few things capture a child’s imagination like space travel”(Anderson) then the article states multiple space travel accomplishments of the past, the moon landing, and the voyager 1 mission for example, before declaring that a new space race has begun. It describes the relation space travel has to all scientific fields, such as physical science, biology and chemistry, as well as ways to bring the topic up in non-science based classrooms. The author then recommends teachers have fun in their classrooms, with projects such as building PVC rockets or making a carbon dioxide scrubber. The article ends with plenty of sources of information and activities for students.
The author of “The New Space Race”, Chris Anderson is a science instructional coach for Hamilton County ESC. Using an academic journal as his medium, his purpose is to get more teachers to teach about space as well as help them do so, stating, “bringing the far reaches of space to your classroom is something every science teacher should do, regardless of the subject they teach”(Anderson). The article aims to be read by an audience of science teachers of any grade level and discipline, as shown by the previous quote, and that is was published by, the “ National Science Teachers Association”. The tone of this article as well as the stance of the author is persuasive, he wants more people to teach the topic because he himself enjoys it, as he says, “There are simply too many advances in space travel happening on what feels like a weekly basis to let such a current and exciting topic go unaddressed in the classroom. The possibilities for application are as limitless as our Universe!”(Anderson) He uses professional but nonacademic language and is talking to his peers. I believe the genre of this academic journal would be an essay.
All three of these sources are interesting and different types of rhetoric on a very captivating topic. I believe that the first article was written in a rhetorical situation in which the author, Martand Jha thought more people should know about the history of the Space Race and its lasting effects, and that the article was written solely to inform its audience on the topic, While the second article was more designed to persuade its readers to view a topic in the same way the author does. The third article, “The New Space Race” is obviously rhetorical in my opinion, as it was written by a teacher to be read by teachers as and used to aid them in their own classrooms. While all three authors use a similar and professional language style, their tones still differ dramatically just from how they structure and present their information. From reading and analyzing these three articles I’ve concluded that authors even when discussing the same topic, have many different motivations and reasons for writing, which leads to distinct rhetorical ways to address an audience, consciously or unconsciously for their individual purpose.
Works Cited
Jha, Martand. “This Is How the Space Race Changed the Great Power Rivalry Forever.” The National Interest, The Center for the National Interest, 27 July 2017, nationalinterest.org/feature/how-the-space-race-changed-the-great-power-rivalry-forever-21690.
“The space race is one giant leap for the private sector.” Independent [London, England], 26 Jan. 2020, p. 35. Gale OneFile: News, https://link-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A612231781/STND?u=cuny_ccny&sid=STND&xid=a97eb92a. Accessed 17 Feb. 2020.
Anderson, Chris. “The New Space Race.” The Science Teacher, Nov.-Dec. 2019, p. 58+. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link-gale-com.ccny-proxy1.libr.ccny.cuny.edu/apps/doc/A605476631/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=b3103bea. Accessed 16 Feb. 2020.
