30 January 2013
Charles F. Bolden Jr.
Administrator, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
Dear Mr. Bolden Jr.:
I am writing to you in regards to a recent article entitled A New Fleet Of Robot Asteroid
Prospectors Will Launch By 2015, which appeared in Popular Science Magazine on 22
January 2013.
The article reported that a new company called Deep Space Industries (DSI) is planning a
series of missions to mine asteroids as early as 2015. DSI is the 2nd company to unveil
such plans, the first being competitor Planetary Resources (PRI), which formed in the
spring of 2012 and receives funding from such high-profile personalities as filmmaker
James Cameron, the founders and CEO of Google, and the son of former presidential
candidate Ross Perot.
DSI’s ultimate goal is to mine asteroids for materials capable of fueling their
“MicroGravity Foundry”, which is essentially a 3D printer in space. 3D printers can
produce three dimensional metal objects by laying down successive layers of material
and are already in use in a number of industries.1 DSI claims that by placing this
technology in the proximity of asteroids, it could serve as a factory for manufacturing
parts for communication satellites, space stations and future space missions. The
company also states that asteroid mining could provide a source of fuel for satellites.
DSI intends to achieve its objective by beginning with a series of surveillance missions
planned for 2015-2020. These will begin with two sets of small satellites, which will
study the chemical compositions of Near-Earth Asteroids (ie, asteroids with orbits that
pass within ~195 million km of the Sun and may therefore be capable of intersecting
Earth’s path2 ). The next set of missions includes a fleet of 70-pound unmanned space
crafts (called “Dragonflies”), which will fly to selected asteroids and extract 60 to 150
pounds of space rock, then return the samples to Earth for detailed analysis. (NASA’s
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former space shuttle had a carrying capacity of 32,000 lbs, so the retrieval of 150 pounds
of cargo is small by comparison)3.
I am bringing this news to your attention because I feel that the public should be deeply
concerned about asteroid missions being in the hands of private organizations. The
extinction of the dinosaurs shows us that asteroids have the potential to cause massive
damage to our planet and to threaten the survival of the human race. Attempts to land on
and mine asteroids should therefore be treated with the utmost caution. Of particular
concern is the possibility that a mining expedition could lead to the altering of an
asteroid’s orbit, sending it on a possible collision course with other spacecraft or Earth
itself. Even a collision with another asteroid is potentially hazardous as the debris could
be sent on a deadly path toward Earth.
With such grave consequences at stake, the most prudent course of action is to entrust the
supervision of asteroid missions to publicly-funded, government-regulated organizations
such as NASA or the European Space Agency (ESA). Not only do these agencies have
the proven expertise to handle such pioneering efforts, but they are also subject to
rigorous safety requirements. Certainly, private companies could be allowed to provide
funding and resources, to propose future endeavours and to receive a share of the
proceeds, but the direction of the missions should be left in the hands of agencies which
are more accountable to the general public. Given that commercial activity in space is
clearly becoming a reality, organizations such as NASA need to appeal to their countries’
governments to be granted a supervisory role in all futures missions to mine asteroids.
Sincerely,
An Informed Citizen
Works Cited:
1 Wikipedia contributors. "3D printing." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia,
The Free Encyclopedia, 5 Sep. 2013. Web. 6 Sep. 2013.
2 Wikipedia contributors. "Near Earth object." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia.
Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, 17 Aug. 2014. Web. 8 Sep. 2014.
3 Wikipedia contributors. "Space Shuttle." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikipedia,
The Free Encyclopedia, 6 Sep. 2013. Web. 6 Sep. 2013.
Page 2 of 2
Physics for World Leaders and Informed Citizens
SC/NATS1945A 6.0
Letters to World Leaders: Instructions
Please read all of the information below carefully before beginning your assignment.
PURPOSE OF THIS ASSIGNMENT: To improve your scientific literacy and critical thinking
in topics pertaining to physics and technology.
INTRODUCTION: Each month, you are required to read a recent article on physics or
technology from one of the newspapers or popular science journals listed in the instructions
below. You will then act as a concerned citizen and write a letter to a world leader or public
figure of your choice, in which you summarize the contents of the article, raise issues that the
letter’s recipient should be concerned with and suggest specific actions that the recipient should
take in order to address the issues that you’ve raised. The due dates for each letter are posted
here.
INSTRUCTIONS: For each letter, follow the steps below.
1. Choose your article: Your article must pertain to a topic covered in Chapters 1-6 in the
course textbook (for Fall term letters) or Chapters 7-13 (for Winter term letters) and must be
chosen from one of the following sources:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
CBC News (Technology and Science): www.cbc.ca/news/technology
Discover Magazine: discovermagazine.com/
Scientific American: www.scientificamerican.com/section.cfm?id=news
The Economist (Science and Technology): www.economist.com/science-technology
New York Times (Science)
BBC (Science and Environment): www.bbc.co.uk/news/science_and_environment
Nature (News): http://www.nature.com/news/index.html (Be sure to choose from the
‘News’ column and not from the ‘Opinion’ column.)
Your chosen article must have been published on or after the following dates:
Letter 1
Letter 2
Letter 3
August 1, 2016
October 19, 2016
November 16, 2016
Letter 4
Letter 5
Letter 6
December 15, 2016
February 15, 2017
March 15, 2017
NOTE:
•
You can use the same source for all articles, or you can use a different source for each
article.
•
Some articles are only a few paragraphs – be sure that your chosen articles have enough
content to sufficiently complete the requirements in the steps below.
•
The article must be a text article (not a video clip).
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Letters to World Leaders: Instructions • NATS1945A • FW2016-17
ALSO NOTE: All York students have access to all of the above sources free of charge. If
you access the sources from York’s WIFI network, you will not be asked for subscription
fees. If you are working remotely, you will need to first login to York’s library portal using
your Passport York user ID at www.library.yorku.ca/web/ask-services/computing/offcampus-access/ in order to avoid subscription fees.
TIP: Writing assignments are much easier and more enjoyable when you are discussing
something that you are passionate about. When choosing your articles, try to choose
something that you feel a strong reaction to (either positive or negative) when you read it.
2. Submit the Article Information Form: Click on the Article Information Form link in the
Letters to World Leaders section of our Moodle site and complete the form. This form
requires you to enter your article’s title, publication date, publication source (Nature,
Scientific American, etc), URL and topic. The allowable topics are Chapters 1-6 in the
course textbook (for Fall term letters) and Chapters 7-13 (for Winter term letters).
3. Write your letter: Download the Letter Template. (A link to this template can also be found
in the Letters to World Leaders section of our Moodle site). Save the document as a new
file and be sure to give the file a unique name so that you don’t overwrite any of your other
versions of this document. Next, complete the template by filling in the following sections:
•
Recipient: Choose the world leader or public figure for whom your letter is intended.
The recipient must be a real person and should have some influence over the issues in the
article. For example, you could choose a politician in a city, province, state, or country
which is affected by the issues. Or, you could choose an activist, an industry leader or
CEO of an organization that may be affected by, or the cause of, the issues in the article.
You are welcome to be creative in your selection – for example, you could choose an
actor, a musician or an athlete who is known for speaking out on the issues in the article.
•
Article Information: Enter the title of your article, the publication date and the URL.
•
Article Summary (250-300 words): Summarize the events in your article. Your
summary must be comprehensible to someone with no scientific background, regardless
of the true background of your chosen recipient. Acronyms must be defined and technical
lingo must be explained in layperson’s terms, which means that you may need to look up
unfamiliar words using an encyclopaedic source such as Wikipedia (see the “Note” below
for referencing external information).
•
Recommended action(s) (250-300 words): Explain why you think the recipient should
be concerned with the contents of the article, and describe the specific actions that you
think the recipient should take in order to address the issues that you’ve raised. Actions
could include (but are not limited to) sanctions, a change in company policy, the passing
of a bill, a public protest, a letter-writing campaign, a performance to increase public
awareness, etc. You are encouraged to be creative here, but be sure to provide a
justification for your recommendations. Your arguments do not need to be infallible, but
they do need to be reasonable and thoughtful. In addition, be sure to address the specific
issues or events in your article, as opposed to the broad topic in general.
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Letters to World Leaders: Instructions • NATS1945A • FW2016-17
TIP: You are given several weeks to do an assignment that shouldn’t take more than 1-2
days to complete. If you don’t leave it to the last minute, you’ll have plenty of time to browse
for articles and write your letters at a relaxed and enjoyable pace and to turn in high-quality
work.
TIP: A completed letter from a previous term is provided at
http://www.yorku.ca/rfinger/ns1945/lwl/ns1945-lwl-samp.pdf as an example. This file can
also be found in the Letters to World Leaders section of our Moodle site.
NOTE: If you include any facts or figures that are not given in your article, you will need to
provide your source. Information obtained from sources outside the article must be followed
by an in-text citation, and the full bibliographic reference for the citation must be listed in
MLA format under a WORKS CITED section at the end of your letter. Examples of this are
provided in the sample letter in the Letters to World Leaders section of our Moodle site.
The MLA format for web pages can be found here. Citations to Wikipedia pages can be
generated by clicking on the “Cite this page” link on the relevant page, then scrolling down
to the citation listed under “MLA style”.
4. Edit your work: When you’ve finished writing your letter, make sure to have it spellchecked and get it edited so that you don’t lose marks for poor writing. Here are some ways
to get your work edited:
•
Ask a friend or family member with excellent English writing skills, preferably someone
with no science background so they can confirm that your writing is understandable for a
layperson.
•
Use an editing tool, either built into your word-processor or online. Grammarly
(https://www.grammarly.com/) is an excellent, free online grammar checker.
•
Take (or send) your work to York’s Writing Center (http://writingcentre.writ.laps.yorku.ca/).
•
Meet with a writing instructor at York’s Learning Commons Hub, located on the 2nd floor
of the Scott Library. Visit the Hub to find out their hours.
•
If you are an ESL student, make an appointment at York’s ESL Open Learning Centre
(http://eslolc.laps.yorku.ca/).
5. Submit your letter: When you’ve completed and edited your letter, go to the Letters to
World Leaders section of our Moodle site and click on the appropriate ‘Letters to World
Leaders: Upload’ link, then click on the ‘Submit to TurnItIn’ icon
to upload your
completed letter.
6. Check that your letter was submitted successfully: After uploading your letter, click on
the link in the ‘Similarity’ column (even if it says ‘Pending’). This should open your letter
in the TurnItIn Document Viewer. Confirm that your file appears as it should.
7. Check your similarity score: Within 24 hours of submitting your file, your work will be
assigned a ‘Similarity’ score. This is the percentage of your content that matches existing
sources, such as web sites or other students’ papers. A similarity score of 0%-30% is normal
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Letters to World Leaders: Instructions • NATS1945A • FW2016-17
for this type of assignment. If your similarity score is greater than 30%, you should click on
the link to your file in the ‘Similarity’ column to open your file in the TurnItIn Document
Viewer. Text that has been matched with existing sources will be highlighted. If the
highlighted sections are primarily lists of names, places, or astronomical objects, then no
revisions are necessary. However, if the highlighted sections contain complete sentences
from an existing source, you should rewrite the sentence in your own words to avoid losing
marks. Revised files can be resubmitted up to the deadline.
NOTE: If you submit your file within 24 hours of the due date, the similarity report might
not be completed by the submission deadline. This does not mean that your file is late, but it
does mean that you will not be able to revise your file if the similarity score is high. So, try to
submit your file at least 48 hours in advance of the deadline.
IMPORTANT REQUIREMENTS
The Article Information Form must be submitted by the due date of the corresponding
letter. If the Article Information Form is missing, a 1-mark penalty will be applied and
your letter will not be marked until the end of the term.
Your letters must be submitted using the Letter Template. If you submit a different
document, a 1-mark penalty will be applied.
Your letters must be written using full sentences (ie, point-form answers are not
acceptable) and each section must meet the required word count specified in Step 3
above.
Your article topics must pertain to one of the topics in Chapters 1-6 of our course
textbook (for Fall term letters) or Chapters 7-13 (for Winter term letters). The articles
must come from one of the allowable sources listed in Step 1 above. Furthermore, your
article must be a genuine news article as opposed to a video, blog or opinion piece. If
these requirements are not met, a 1-mark penalty will be applied. If you are not sure
whether your chosen article is suitable, email the article link to the professor for
confirmation.
Each of your chosen articles must be on a different chapter in the textbook. Refer to the
Article Information Form for the complete list of chapters. If this requirement is not met,
a 1-mark penalty will be applied.
Your articles must have been published on or after the dates specified in Step 1 above. If
this requirement is not met, a 1-mark penalty will be applied.
Your writing is expected to be free of spelling and grammatical errors. Refer to Step 4
above for suggestions for getting your work edited. If your work contains spelling and/or
grammatical errors, a 1-mark penalty will be applied.
Remember: the recipient of your letter cannot be assumed to be a specialist in the topic of
your chosen article. Your writing must therefore be comprehensible to readers with no
scientific background. This means that all scientific terms or concepts used in the article
must be defined or explained.
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Letters to World Leaders: Instructions • NATS1945A • FW2016-17
The two sections of your letter (ie, the summary and the recommended actions) each have
a specific purpose, so be careful not to repeat the same information in both sections.
When you read through your work, make sure that every statement brings in a new piece
of information or a new thought/idea.
Late submissions will incur a 10% penalty per day. Technical difficulties are not an
acceptable excuse for missing deadlines. Be sure to attempt your submission at least one
weekday before the deadline so you have time to resolve any technical problems that may
arise. If you are not able to upload your file, email your file to the professor before the
deadline so that it can be time-stamped. Please do not email your file unless you are sure
that your submission has failed.
VERY VERY IMPORTANT: Your letters must be in YOUR OWN WORDS. Any
quoting from the article or other sources will not count toward your total word count.
PLAGIARSM: Plagiarism is a major academic offence and carries serious penalties, ranging
from a failing grade on the work in question to a failing grade in the course. Students who have
not yet completed University-level writing assignments are encouraged to refer to York ’s
Academic Integrity Tutorial at www.yorku.ca/tutorial/academic_integrity/?g11n.enc=UTF-8.
This is a very useful tutorial for learning the important distinction between presenting someone
else’s work and plagiarizing their work.
EVALUATION: The evaluation of your work will be available approximately 2-3 weeks after
each due date. Your total mark for each letter is computed from a detailed rubric. A preview of
the rubric can be found here. After each of your letters have been marked, the completed rubric
can be viewed as follows:
1. From the ‘Letters to World Leaders: Upload’ link, click on the link to your submitted
file in the ‘Grade’ column. This will open your file in the TurnItIn Document Viewer.
2. At the bottom-right corner of the Viewer, you'll see 4 icon buttons. Click on the right-most
button. This will open up the ‘scorecard’, where you can see a detailed breakdown of your
mark as well as a justification for the mark awarded in each category.
PLEASE NOTE: While we appreciate that students are anxious to receive their marks, please
be aware that high-quality and thorough marking of written assignments is a time-consuming
process. Students are therefore asked to refrain from requesting their marks. A course
announcement will be posted when the marking has been completed for each set of letters.
ENJOY, AND HAPPY LETTER WRITING!
Page 5 of 5
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