The Search for Research

In the past week, I have been looking for potential sources to support my paper regarding the current status, as well the role that private space companies should play in space exploration. I have found many articles on the internet which have information on what companies are doing, as well as the need for private space companies instead of government- based space exploration alone. I, honestly, used the library website for useful articles for the first time today. They seemed to have a good amount of articles when I searched the BOSS system for "private space companies." The only downfall I noticed was that some of the sources were pretty old like pre-2000. I feel like that for my topic, outdated articles are not as credible. I am, after all, going to be writing about the current status of private space companies. Another downfall I noticed when going through articles was that many of the articles truly were saying the same thing. They would just discuss the recent advancements of a particular private space company and how they expect this to be the first step in a surge for space exploration. I want to find an article where the author asserts something new, something more opinionated. A lot of the articles just point out actual facts. I have not looked for any articles that the author is against the idea of private space companies, but I plan to do that next. I'm not necessarily glad we have to do these source annotations as an assignment, but I am sort of okay with it because I think this will help tremendously with writing the paper. Having the sources already present with the main idea of the source at hand will save a lot of time, as well as help with organization.

Research: Phase 1

The past week or so, I have been looking for a research question for the upcoming essay. My first essay was over the topic of if NASA spending was a waste of money and resources. I feel like this would have been a good topic for this upcoming essay, but I wanted to do something else that still was somewhat similar. I literally Googled "research questions about space exploration" and went through over a dozen of the results. I finally came across a website called www.space.com. Even though this website does not sound very resourceful or legitimate, but it is full of legitimate information and news regarding the space industry. I saw that the website had a lot of information on private space companies and what they are currently doing to contribute to space exploration. I, then, Googled "private space companies" and found many helpful websites that will be useful for the upcoming essay. I decided that my research question would be The article I write about in my previous blog post is one that is definitely going to be used in the essay. I have looked at some of the company websites such as SpaceX and Blue Origin. The SpaceX website is helpful in that it has a timetable and a schedule for upcoming events. The other company, Blue Origin, is also very informative. They have a section dedicated to "Updates" where they inform the public of the most recent status of each project and venture. I will use all these resources to write about private space companies and what all they are doing to advance space travel. I do not know exactly what approach I will be taking, but it will either be argument posing the advantages of having private space companies or asserting how effective it can be with the coexistence of these private space companies and NASA- where NASA could be restructured to be more of like an oversight committee. This will be determined this week based on the sources I come across.

Space Exploration Plans

An online website dedicated to science innovations and news, Wired Science, was the source used to obtain the following article discussed. "The Year's Most Audacious Private Space Exploration Plans," an article written by Adam Mann, discusses and summarizes all of the accomplishments and successes of private space companies in the past year. One of the arguments he poses is that recent success in private space industry is due to the lack of new research and lack of funding for NASA. It gives the private companies an incentive to do the things NASA isn't. The author specifically discusses many different private and commercial space companies and each of their particular accomplishments and innovations.

The author claims that one of the most important factors contributing to the success of all these companies is due to the success one particular company, SpaceX. SpaceX is the forerunner in the private space industry and this year, the company conducted two successful launches to the International Space Station using their transport vehicle, the Falcon 9. One of these missions was one where there was carried cargo, which leads the way for SpaceX to conduct manned flights in the near future. Another company discussed is the Golden Spike Company, whose main effort is to send people back to the moon by the year 2020. Their main customer will be governments with smaller space programs looking to gain some prestige in the space field. Asteroid mining is another topic the author discusses and uses the company Planetary Resources Inc. as a reference. Planetary Resources Inc. revealed their plans for asteroid mining this past year with hopes to extract water and precious materials, such as platinum. There is still much legal action that is pending the company's efforts. With Mars exploration a big issue on everyone's mind, a fairly new company called Mars One addresses this issue by planning to land 4 crew members on Mars by the year 2023. Their intent is for the crew to live up there and potentially produce a reality TV show following them in order to regain initial investment money. This is one of the most radical of all the private space company endeavors.

Overall, there was great success for private space companies in the year 2012. Many companies did something great or established a plan to accomplish something great here in the future. Some of these plans seem unrealistic and radical, and some seem very realistic and useful. However, the fact that there are so many private space companies with such high ambition excites me. This year was tremendous for the private space industry and the future looks bright.

Research at OSU

I have learned that there is a vast amount of research being conducted in the engineering department at OSU. A good portion of this is being conducted by faculty in the mechanical and aerospace engineering discipline. There are numerous research facilities here on campus devoted for engineers such as the Advanced Controls Laboratory, the Advanced Manufacturing Processes Laboratory, the Computational AeroServo Elasticity Laboratory, the Hydrodynamics and Aerodynamics Laboratory, and the Mechanics of Advanced Materials Laboratory. One of my current professors, Dr. Jacob is onee of the main faculty members involved in aerospace research. He is currently doing research in Plasma Based Flow Control, Deployable Wing Development and Testing, HALE UAV's, Nano and Micro Aerial Vehicle Aerodynamics and Systems, and Flapping Wing Aerodynamics. All these current projects are done in the Hydrodynamics and Aerodynamics Laboratory mentioned earlier.

So, I just recently started assisting my advisor Dr. Hatami- Marbini, a faculty member in mechanical engineering, with his research. I am still in the preliminary stage learning the background information, but it will start to pick up here pretty soon. He is doing a variety of different research projects such as dealing with multiscale modeling, mechanics of biological materials, nano- and micro- mechanics of composites, and cell mechanics. The research I will be assisting with will involve the development of composite materials and how they perform under stress. So pretty much, mesh two or more materials together and see what combination gives the optimum material performance/ properties. This is all I really know up to this point as I just started. Overall, I believe getting this research experience will help me in my future endeavors to attend graduate school.