Choosing My Topic

Coming up with my research topic was not as easy as I thought it would have been. Honestly, at first, I wanted to choose the same topic I did for the first paper which was whether spending money and resources was a waste or not, but I did not know if I could do that so I started searching for new topics. I considered choosing a topic potentially dealing with airplanes for that is a major aspect of my major, but my interest truly is in the space field so I did not think that I would get as passionate about the paper, probably resulting in a poorer paper. So, I started Googling vague things such as "space exploration topics" and was having a really hard time finding a topic that I truly thought I could write a lot about. I, then, searched "space" on Reddit and saw the topics with the comments and discussions dealt with private space industry. Private space industry interests me a lot, for it is probably where I want to work in the future. So, now I knew I was going to write about the private space industry, but still did not know what exactly to write about pertaining to this. After reading comments from earlier blog posts and discussion posts, I came to the conclusion of writing about how private space companies and NASA can work together. I wanted to write about what overall role the private space industry will have on space exploration. Will they partner with NASA? Will they do the small jobs for NASA? Will they do their own thing? I found a bunch of sources afterwards discussing the current statuses of many private space companies and their plans. These will help to write about how they will coexist with the government sector in space exploration.

Research Success

So since Essay 2 due was this week, I really had to step up my game with gathering useful sources for my topic. I primarily searched for articles using the library website this time since that is where most of the sources are supposed to come from. I had a lot of trouble finding any useful articles last week when using the OSU databases, but I had a lot of success this time. I tried out different combinations of words  relating to my research topic to put in the search box this time. A slight change in wording resulted in many different results. Proquest was the database that most of my sources came from, but I also found a few on the LexisNexis Academic database. Some of the sources I used did not list an author. I think this was because they were found in magazines. I was hesitant, at first, to use these sources for I felt they may not have been very credible, but they had very good information so I included them. In my last blog post, I had trouble finding current, up- to- date sources, but I probably was not looking hard enough because surprisingly, this time around, I ended with all my sources being fairly new. I even had a few that were just published less than a few months ago. Reading through all these articles and picking out the key points and useful information really gave me a better understanding on the subject. Having these annotation summaries will be very useful when writing the actual paper.

Search Deeper

I have still been looking for useful sources of information for the second paper. The library databases are what I have been primarily using for articles regarding information of private space companies. Two days ago, SpaceX, who is pretty much the leader in private space, sent a cargo capsule to the International Space Station successfully. Due to this recent breakthrough, there have been a lot of articles talking about it. They talk about what it means to the private space industry now and how it could pave the way for the future. I am still short of sources for the second paper so I need to step up my research game. Like I mentioned in the previous blog post or discussion post (I can't remember which one), finding articles that have different views on the subject is difficult. I actually found a website that is in the form of a debate, naturally it is called www.debate.org, that seems really helpful and interesting. I do not think it can really be used as a credible source as it is just different users debating their views with each other. However, this is one of the first sources I have found that really discuss the disadvantages of private sector investment in human space flight and exploration. The debater against the idea uses the argument that private space companies will ultimately only do what it takes to make a profit whereas government regulated space travel has an interest in gaining knowledge for the good of the people. Also, the debater argues that private space companies will struggle with diplomatic matters when international space flight is an issue. Overall, I find this website helpful for me to gain a better understanding. Now, I might try to search for different things specifically about the private space industry that I learn from this online debate.