The following opinion was provided in a letter to the editor of a national aeronautics magazine:
“Manned space flight is costly and dangerous. Moreover, the recent success of a series of unmanned space probes and satellites has demonstrated that a great deal of useful information can be gathered without the costs and risks associated with sending men and women into space. Therefore, we should invest our resources in unmanned space flight."
Write a response in which you examine the stated and/or unstated assumptions of the argument. Be sure to explain how the argument depends on these assumptions and what the implications are for the argument if the assumptions prove unwarranted.
The argument makes a number of unwarranted assumptions. It does not portray a strong premise for the conclusion that it makes, making the claim weak and questionable.
Firstly, the argument bases its recommendation on the recent success of a series of unmanned space probes and satellites. However, the argument does not give any evidence to support its claim as to why manned space flight is costly or dangerous. Further, the argument makes a generalization that, since a recent series of unmanned space programs were safe, all such endeavors in the future will also be safe. Further evidence regarding the successes of a long history of unmanned space programs could corroborate these claims. There is no clear or concrete evidence to compare the cost-effectiveness of an unmanned space program as against a manned program.
Secondly, the argument completely fails to consider as to why manned space programs are needed in the first place. The argument assumes that the only objective of a space program is to gather useful information. On the contrary, there are several space programs that send Astronauts for entirely different reasons - be it to resolve a crisis in the international space station or in such scenarios where the human brain - the most powerful analytical instrument - is necessary, like troubleshooting and debugging faulty machines.
Finally, based on the biased and flawed assumptions, the argument proposes that all the resources be invested only in unmanned space flight. This recommendation fails to consider that there are several space programs that are sent to space or different planets in search of life and to assess the possibility of life in outer space. It is unclear as to how such challenging missions can be achieved by machines, which have limited functionalities and no free meditation. Additionally, though it can be argued that, with the advent of artificial intelligence and such, the role of technology in space programs will increase, the role of man as the mediator or the controller of these machines cannot be replaced. And since the arguments in the letter provide no such evidence or line of reasoning, it is limited and flawed.
Comments
Essay evaluation report
argument 1 -- not exactly. better way:
for 'Manned space flight is costly and dangerous.', 1. the author assumes that unmanned space flight is not costly; 2. the author assumes that Manned space flight has not improved the safety or will not improve.
argument 2 -- partly. look: 'the recent success of a series of unmanned space probes...' is not equal to 'future success', 'a great deal of useful information' is not equal to 'all information'.
argument 3 -- OK
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Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 0 2
No. of Sentences: 15 15
No. of Words: 352 350
No. of Characters: 1788 1500
No. of Different Words: 171 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.331 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.08 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.956 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 136 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 105 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 79 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 40 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 23.467 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.493 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.533 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.359 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.557 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.079 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 4 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 410, Rule ID: SENT_START_CONJUNCTIVE_LINKING_ADVERB_COMMA[1]
Message: Did you forget a comma after a conjunctive/linking adverb?
Suggestion: Further,
...eavors in the future will also be safe. Further evidence regarding the successes of a l...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 485, Rule ID: WHITESPACE_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a whitespace
Suggestion:
...es and no free meditation. Additionally, though it can be argued that, with the a...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, finally, first, firstly, however, if, regarding, second, secondly, so, as to, on the contrary, in the first place
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 17.0 19.6327345309 87% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 6.0 12.9520958084 46% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 10.0 13.6137724551 73% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 19.0 28.8173652695 66% => OK
Preposition: 45.0 55.5748502994 81% => OK
Nominalization: 19.0 16.3942115768 116% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1835.0 2260.96107784 81% => OK
No of words: 352.0 441.139720559 80% => More content wanted.
Chars per words: 5.21306818182 5.12650576532 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.33147354134 4.56307096286 95% => OK
Word Length SD: 3.05420968277 2.78398813304 110% => OK
Unique words: 179.0 204.123752495 88% => More unique words wanted.
Unique words percentage: 0.508522727273 0.468620217663 109% => OK
syllable_count: 591.3 705.55239521 84% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.7 1.59920159681 106% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 2.0 2.70958083832 74% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 4.22255489022 95% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 15.0 19.7664670659 76% => Need more sentences. Double check the format of sentences, make sure there is a space between two sentences, or have enough periods. And also check the lengths of sentences, maybe they are too long.
Sentence length: 23.0 22.8473053892 101% => OK
Sentence length SD: 61.7883124511 57.8364921388 107% => OK
Chars per sentence: 122.333333333 119.503703932 102% => OK
Words per sentence: 23.4666666667 23.324526521 101% => OK
Discourse Markers: 7.93333333333 5.70786347227 139% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 5.15768463074 78% => More paragraphs wanted.
Language errors: 2.0 5.25449101796 38% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 8.0 6.88822355289 116% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 0.0 4.67664670659 0% => More facts, knowledge or examples wanted.
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.243003281042 0.218282227539 111% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.093262197797 0.0743258471296 125% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0662159042515 0.0701772020484 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.134967700154 0.128457276422 105% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0998184918927 0.0628817314937 159% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 14.8 14.3799401198 103% => OK
flesch_reading_ease: 39.67 48.3550499002 82% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 13.4 12.197005988 110% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.23 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 9.08 8.32208582834 109% => OK
difficult_words: 96.0 98.500998004 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.0 12.3882235529 65% => OK
gunning_fog: 11.2 11.1389221557 101% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 66.67 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.0 Out of 6
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Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.