Summary and Evaluation

Summery and Evaluation of Article “South by Southwest: A Space Tourist Makes His Case”

Summery  

Jeffrey Kluger’s article titled “South by Southwest: A Space Tourist Makes His Case” is basically about the prominent personality, Richard Garriott. The main point clearly spelt out by the author is how publicity is sometimes essential when an individual has some accomplishments. The author lays emphasis on the magnitude that support from other people is essential in realization of one’s goal. Touring the space is the major idea that Jeffrey Kluger highlights in this article. Richard Garriott being highlighted in this article was a son of astronaut Owen Garriott.

The article highlights how publicity had a different story with regard to the mission of Richard. The democratization of flight takes a milestone in the life of Richard Garriott and becomes a viable enterprise. The article portrays space tourism, which affirmed that door to orbit was now accessible to everyone. The author says that when at South by Southwest he had a chance of making his own case to an interesting audience (Kluger, 2013). Nevertheless, there were numerous people who built spacecraft and tried to luring other people to use theirs to fly. Through the article the readers come to terms with how Garriott is a great thinker who accomplishes the impossible things that other people have tried but in vain. This story is an inspiration to many people since the author portrays Garriott as an achiever with more idea still coming.

Evaluation

Upon evaluating Jeffrey Kluger’s article, it becomes evident that journalist must get the facts straight. For instance when Jeffrey Kluger says, “The development of this kind of so-called single stage to orbit (SSTO) spacecraft has been the space engineer’s version of the hunt for cold fusion or the everlasting shift machine that all humankind have been dreaming of flying in space, and no one’s cracked it yet” (Kluger, 2013). Standing alone, the above extract is true but plainly erroneous as it seems exceedingly ambitious or represents Elon Musk’s Grasshopper ambitions. Garriott is a committed personality trying (and so far successfully) developing space transport system that is reusable and cost-effective. The process of making an efficient transport system to space that employs the conventional manifold stages that will later turn to earth to be reused.

As Elon Musk points out modern space transport system would have diverse problems if at all the Aircraft had to be changed after every mission. This is simply because fuel and operations overhead costs are much lower as compared to the cost of manufacturing. SSTO is an approach that may soon become scientifically practical; however, the contemporary aerospace companies are unwilling to invest their own resources to come up with one. When evaluating this article, I take issue with the author’s representation (or is it Mr Garriot’s) account of asteroid mining as lassoing an asteroid with the aim of  bringing it back to the Earth surface to be reused (Kluger, 2013).

Finally, as Jeffrey Kluger has also reiterated the above notion, despite his order of a reduced price of achieving orbit, it remains unfeasible. The real value is not easy to estimate and anyone try to do so is likely to underestimate. Garriott plays an essential role by offering solution to numerous inconsistencies associated with this mega project. He says as an alternative of de-orbiting megatons of rock, numerous tons of refining equipment needs to be reaching the space to help in refining the constructive materials from the asteroid’s bulk. This is essential since they can be used in the space. The whole idea in this article is that infrastructure has to be built in space. Generally, this is a good writing that is likely to inspire many people.