History 491 Blogs

In the end, I must say the class was interesting, and in a way, fun. It was probably my easiest class this semester, well besides Leisure skills 101, which was a major joke or a class. I definitely liked learning about the space program. It was much better than my history 471 class, the history of World War I. I do feel however that some days the class was boring to death. I’m kinda surprised that I actually showed up for most of the classes, and ended up have only 5 or 6 absences in the class. In my other classes I have up to around 16 absences for the entire semester. One of my favorite things about the class was watching videos about our subject from time to time. I really enjoy watching tv, and this just provided me to do more of just that. (By the way, my favorite channel is the History channel, I probably watch a minimum of 2 hours of history channel a day). One thing I wish I had learned more of in the class, but didn’t, was more about other countries space programs. I’m sure most Americans have some sort of knowledge of the US space program, but very few (including myself) know much about the Russian, Japanese, Chinese, or European space programs. I wish we had a week or so to review some over their space programs so I had more of an understanding of where the world all over stood in the race for space. Perhaps the next time the class is taught, there will be more activity in other countries, and will be of increased importance to the point that the class will discuss them. Regardless the class turned out pretty good all around. As long as I don’t get a C in the class I’ll be happy. I’ve pretty much settled on the fact that I’ll be receiving a B, although it sure would be cool if I got an A in the class, although I feel that would be kinda hard to do, since I’ve made B’s on everything so far. I just hope I do well on the final, and it’s not all too hard. But based on the midterm paper, I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble, cause I’m pretty sure I’ve learned quite a bit, and using my books and the notes I have, I should be able to pump out some decent stuff for the final.

NG

The in class debate was a bit interesting, yet still somewhat entertaining. I was in the group arguing against the abolishment of NASA. I think the debate was a little bit unfairly sided in a few ways however. For one, we only had 4 people on our side. The other group had 7 people debating for their team’s opinion ( for the abolishment of NASA). I on the other hand felt our argument was much stronger and more reinforced. The other group had a limited amount of data and information on their dispute to use. I feel they didn’t do that great of a job researching their cause either. I feel our group came well prepared, and had a good bit of information to back up our arguments. Our arguments were much more solid, and where back with real information which had solid backing and was well based. In the end, our group actually ended up winning the debate. I think it was in a way a fun experience, but maybe not so much an experience for learning. I do feel however it was a good way to get both view points and opinions about a controversial subject like whether or not to get rid of NASA. In the end, it will nice to have those extra three points add to my grade for simply participating in a in class debate, and only having to get a page of notes together, which I did in a matter of minutes. I think that might not be a bad activity to try in a lot of my other classes, I feel, in a way, it was sort of a good way to rap up the end of the semester.

NG

Now that we a basically done with the Berinstein book Making Space Happen: Private Space Ventures and the Visionaries behind them, I’d like to say a few things about how I feel about he book. First, I like how the book was more modern than the other books we read. I like the new details, and new statistics. After all I’ve learned about our space program, and Apollo, and ICBM’s and the moon for years. I’m more or less interested in where our space program is going now. This book centers around the future business of space. Unfortunately I get the feel that these plans to have way too many flaws, and are very unlikely to become realistic hopes for commercial business in space any time soon. I do like, in some senses, how she writes the book, it’s a pleasant change from the rest of the books we read. Reading the same boring old types of books gets old after awhile. In the end the book turned out ok, even know I skipped a chapter or two about the different visionaries, or at least parts of the chapters. I wasn’t all the interested in these somewhat crazy visionaries, who in my mind, will probably never succeed. I just feel that their plans for profit are just to unwell thought out, and that those sort of profit margins, along with how little they think it will cost to get people into space are just wrong. Maybe some day in about 20 or 30 years people will actually have the ability to travel to space, and spend a weekend in a space hotel, or even work in space in a micro gravity factory.

NG

This blog will concentrate on the research paper I did in the class and my feelings towards that subject. I did my research paper on The Future of Space: Government Vs. Private Enterprise. The report is centered around the whether or not I feel that the future of space will continue to be monopolized by large governments, or become a industry dominated by smaller private businesses. Over the past half century there have been major advances in the scientific power and overall abilities of human beings. Thanks to the cold war, and the US fighting against the USSR for space supremacy our abilities to enter and use space have changed dramatically. After the United States landed on the moon the space race begin to draw to an end, and enthusiasm has begun to diminish. Finally with decline of the Soviet Union the space race was over and public interest in space fell dramatically. Now, the space atmosphere has changed, and the prospects of space have began to open to private entrepreneurs. Currently around the governments around the world spend and approximate 68 billion dollars a year annually on space. In contrast space commerce, including satellite, launch equipment, and ground equipment sales, plus satellite services, is a 81.1 billion dollar a year industry. This is nearly a %20 percent larger spending basin than governments, but these expenditures are relatively central and aren’t exactly representing the future of space, since nearly all of them are investments within 300 miles of earth, and are not actually in “outer space.” Recently new ideas for the commercialization of space have begun to spring up around space tourism. Since the beginning of space flight over 40 years ago only 439 humans have been into space. Not one person has ever been sent into space solely from the backing of a commercial enterprise. Dennis Tito was the first person to go into space (and currently only) from the perspective of a vacation. He paid a reported 20 million dollars for a 6 day flight to the International Space Station in May of 2001. This was the beginning of the space tourism industry. Another group “Space Adventures” also has “space” tourism, yet their tours consist of flying to around 25km above earth (space is considered 100km above earth), making their ‘space’ tours, not much of a flight into space. More recently groups have begin to spring up with plans to create space hotels, and true space tourism. One of the is the Space Island Group, who has plans to have “10,000 jobs in space by 2010.” Although these plans seem to be a change in the future of space from government based to private business, they are flawed, and I feel they are extremely unlikely. It is my opinion that companies like Space Island Group are unlikely to be successful within the next 20 to 30 years. There cost estimation along with their expectations for public enthusiasm are extremely thawed. I feel that in the next 20 to 30 years the space industry will continue to be ruled by large governments. I feel that space want really begin to be taken over for another 20 to 30 years, for many reasons including their lack of funding, technology, experience in space, and overall preparations for the difficulties of space travel.

NG

The group project, the website, turned out to be a bit of trouble. I must say that our group had a ton of trouble getting together to actually accomplish this task. We decided that we would break the book ( Project Orion) into different sections (kinda like how we were reading it in class) and each of us, would read our section, do some research on it, and then come up with a web page for the information. Unfortunately we took too long to actually meet and get it accomplished, and that greatly slowed our progress. I personally think it turned out pretty good in the end, however. For my section I tried to make a special attempt to have links on my web page that would be useful to readers, and allow them the chance to find out more information about subjects in the reading which interested them. I feel that I used a good variety of extra links, each one giving the reader a great opportunity to get the extra information they needed. My group also did this, and I feel that it definitely helped our project out a bunch. A few days before it was finally due the group met and we looked at all our info, turned it into pages, and had a pretty cool main page that linked them all. I think overall we should all get pretty good grades on it, cause I looked at the other groups who did web pages, and I think we probably have either the best, or one of the best. I don’t know if our teacher has graded the pages yet, but hopefully after she’s done grading this one we will have a b or better.

NG

This blog will somewhat, help to explain my view point on the Question we have for our Test assignment. First off, I find it hard to argue one way or another at this question, because regardless of what is said, most of it is just speculation. It's hard to compare something that happened and is now a part of our history with something that never happened, and was just some alternate idea out there. I feel that Kennedy's decision to go the moon, and the methods involved in getting there were basically inevitable in a sense. I feel at some point in time, human beings would have reached the moon. I feel that many of the same technologies which were used to get the to moon would have been discovered and used to get to the moon regardless of the approach which was used. Perhaps some of them were discovered sooner, or more costly, but without regard, they were discovered, and used. From this view point, I find it very hard to actually draw a conclusion about whether it helped or hurt the program in general.

NG

Tonight we watched '2001: A space Odyssey.' I must say I was kinda surprised by it. The movie was much different than I was expecting, and honestly, I don't really think it was the most appropriate movie for our class to watch. I feel that our class would have gotten a much better experience through watching 'Apollo 13.' It is kinda funny however to watch what people of '68 thought space flight would turn out to be like in the future. One thing I was rather surprised about was the use of the computer 'Hal' and how they our computer technology would be. I also feel a computer of that intelligence and computing ability isn't too far off from our possible technology. Besides that, I found the movie to be kinda boring, and the screeching noise was very annoying. But atleast we don't have class Friday before spring break, when I go to Panama City.

NG

Recently while I was surfing the net, I found this webpage, and thought it was quite interesting. The Lunar Republic, is a site which will sell acres of land on the moon. I'm not sure how much use this land will be, but you can apparently buy and sell it. This site includes many things, from a place to register your land, to buying maps, and possible flights to your lunar property. Just thought some of you would find this interesting.

NG

About a week ago, I was watching a show called 'Modern Marvels: Space Shuttle Columbia' on the history channel. The one I watched was on the 2 great disasters of the space shuttle program, Columbia and Challenger. The show gave a great highlight to the politics, design, and personal views of many of the people in the space shuttle program. So far I've seen that it has aired twice since the beginning of this class, and I'll try to go to the website and find out the next time it airs. After watching the show it definitely gave me a different perspective on my views of the management of the safety aspect of the shut launches. If your ever flipping through the channels and come upon the show I'd think it would be a good idea to stop and watch it.

NG

1/16/04

This is my first blog and it is just a test.

NG