"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 opinion stated in the letter to the editor that we more resources should be invested in unmanned space flights are based on some incomplete findings. Whosoever wrote the letter believes that manned flight is dangerous and costly and since the same amount of information can be gathered via unmanned flights, he or she would rather prefer to divert the money in that area. However, there are three main assumptions made in reaching this conclusion.
The author of the letter seems to assume that manned space flights are costly. On what basis is this statement made? Do we have any evidence to prove that manned space flights are indeed expensive deals? Probably, the rates are that high in this industry considering the kind of equipment required to build a box that could be thrown out of the Earth's atmosphere without worrying about it blasting of due to varying pressure (that too with a human inside). The cause to worry and amount of effort put in to create the spacecraft would be almost the same irrespective of the human inside since the investments made are huge in this endeavour. If the above reasoning were to be true, the argument made regarding the expense unmanned flights would fail to hold water.
Further, the letter states that manned flights are dangerous. On what accounts is this statement justified? Isn't the action of ejecting a huge metal body into space itself a "dangerous" idea? We are trying to push something out of the earth's atmosphere, trying to defy gravity. Of course, it is a dangerous activity! Be it manned or unmanned, even a small mistake could cost us millions of dollars worth of damage! Imagine, the space shuttle burst even before it could make it to outer space and the debris land on an unfortunate village killing hundreds of people. In this regard, whether the flight was manned or not is of as much importance compared to the number of lives lost in total. Hence, if above argument is considered, we realise that the whole ordeal of space travel is one involving great risks and danger and if this were proved true, the assumption made that "manned flights are dangerous" would be moot.
Last, but not the least, another assumption made is that unmanned space probes can be compared to manned probes. The letter states that the the recent unmanned flights have been a success and have been able to procure useful information. the question here is , how useful was the information collected? Is the unmanned space probe capable of collecting the actual samples that a human could actually provide? Is there a bot which has replaced the human in these unmanned space missions? Further, is the bot smart enough to outwit the guts and impulse of a human in case a disaster were to occur during their mission? If the answer is no, the risks involved on the unmanned mission are much higher to that of manned missions as the spacecraft is doomed to be destroyed. Again, the assumption
Hence, in conclusion, is the author of the letter must consider the above unstated assumptions made in his or her letter and further deliberate on his or her stand before reaching a conclusion.
Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 3.5 out of 6
Category: Satisfactory Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 16 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 4 2
No. of Sentences: 26 15
No. of Words: 540 350
No. of Characters: 2532 1500
No. of Different Words: 254 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.821 4.7
Average Word Length: 4.689 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.418 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 187 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 119 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 83 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 43 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 20.769 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 10.8 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.346 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.273 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.441 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.084 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 5, column 109, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: Isn't
...t accounts is this statement justified? Isnt the action of ejecting a huge metal bod...
^^^^
Line 5, column 173, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'an' instead of 'a' if the following word starts with a vowel sound, e.g. 'an article', 'an hour'
Suggestion: an
...ing a huge metal body into space itself a 'dangerous' idea? We are tryi...
^
Line 5, column 246, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[2]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'earths'' or 'earth's'?
Suggestion: earths'; earth's
...are trying to push something out of the earths atmosphere, trying to defy gravity. Of ...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 137, Rule ID: ENGLISH_WORD_REPEAT_RULE
Message: Possible typo: you repeated a word
Suggestion: the
...o manned probes. The letter states that the the recent unmanned flights have been a suc...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 137, Rule ID: DT_DT[1]
Message: Maybe you need to remove one determiner so that only 'the' or 'the' is left.
Suggestion: the; the
...o manned probes. The letter states that the the recent unmanned flights have been a suc...
^^^^^^^
Line 7, column 239, Rule ID: UPPERCASE_SENTENCE_START
Message: This sentence does not start with an uppercase letter
Suggestion: The
...een able to procure useful information. the question here is , how useful was the i...
^^^
Line 7, column 259, Rule ID: COMMA_PARENTHESIS_WHITESPACE
Message: Put a space after the comma, but not before the comma
Suggestion: ,
...useful information. the question here is , how useful was the information collecte...
^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
actually, but, hence, however, if, regarding, so, in conclusion, kind of, of course
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 41.0 19.6327345309 209% => Less to be verbs wanted.
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 15.0 11.1786427146 134% => OK
Relative clauses : 16.0 13.6137724551 118% => OK
Pronoun: 41.0 28.8173652695 142% => Less pronouns wanted
Preposition: 75.0 55.5748502994 135% => OK
Nominalization: 14.0 16.3942115768 85% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2617.0 2260.96107784 116% => OK
No of words: 539.0 441.139720559 122% => OK
Chars per words: 4.85528756957 5.12650576532 95% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.81833721656 4.56307096286 106% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.63833912402 2.78398813304 95% => OK
Unique words: 260.0 204.123752495 127% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.482374768089 0.468620217663 103% => OK
syllable_count: 826.2 705.55239521 117% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.5 1.59920159681 94% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 4.0 4.96107784431 81% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.76447105788 137% => OK
Subordination: 3.0 2.70958083832 111% => OK
Conjunction: 1.0 1.67365269461 60% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 24.0 19.7664670659 121% => OK
Sentence length: 22.0 22.8473053892 96% => OK
Sentence length SD: 67.9417642789 57.8364921388 117% => OK
Chars per sentence: 109.041666667 119.503703932 91% => OK
Words per sentence: 22.4583333333 23.324526521 96% => OK
Discourse Markers: 3.45833333333 5.70786347227 61% => OK
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 7.0 5.25449101796 133% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 9.0 8.20758483034 110% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 6.88822355289 131% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.67664670659 128% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.317678530368 0.218282227539 146% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0836029531205 0.0743258471296 112% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.065788909972 0.0701772020484 94% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.160956123841 0.128457276422 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0852416830467 0.0628817314937 136% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.7 14.3799401198 88% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 57.61 48.3550499002 119% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 7.1628742515 43% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 12.197005988 88% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 11.2 12.5979740519 89% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.27 8.32208582834 99% => OK
difficult_words: 121.0 98.500998004 123% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 12.3882235529 61% => OK
gunning_fog: 10.8 11.1389221557 97% => OK
text_standard: 11.0 11.9071856287 92% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 58.33 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 3.5 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.