Asteroids are large space objects made of rock and ice. There are hundreds of thousands of asteroids in our solar system. Though we often hear ideas about establishing colonies of humans to live and work on our Moon or our neighboring planet, Mars, some think that sending people to an asteroid would actually be the best colonization option for a number of reasons.
Low Gravity
To begin with, asteroids are often much smaller than planets, so they have lower gravity. When landing a spaceship, the craft would not be pulled as strongly or as forcefully toward the asteroid’s surface, making the landing safer than landing on the Moon or Mars; it would also allow a spacecraft to carry much more equipment needed to set up the colony. It would also be easier for the spacecraft to take off again, so the spaceship would need to carry considerably less fuel for the trip back to Earth.
Mining Valuable Metals
Next, some asteroids are rich in valuable elements and precious metals that are relatively rare on Earth, such as gold and platinum. An asteroid colony would be extremely profitable and a good source of these raw materials. The colonists or businesses sponsoring them could more than pay for the cost of their support by mining minerals and sending them back to Earth.
Easy to Reach
Finally, asteroids are a good option for colonization because some of them would be very easy to reach. There are a number of asteroids that periodically come within or near Earth’s orbit. Some of them actually get closer to Earth than our Moon. So these asteroids would be much easier and more affordable to get to and get back from than a planet like Mars, which would require a two-year trip in each direction.
The reading and lecture are both about the colonization on asteroids. The author gives three reasons why asteroids are good option for human to live. However, the lecturer challenged the claims made by the author. He is of opinion that moving to asteroids is not practical and has serious downsides.
To begin with, the passage mentions that the lower gravity on asteroids makes landing and taking of aircrafts much easier. The lecture, however, points out the risk of living on asteroids. When astronauts live on the moon, their muscle weakens and their boned density decreases because of lower gravity. Therefore, people will suffer from this health problem if they move to asteroids.
Secondly, the writer suggest that an asteroid colony will be profitable since it usually contains valuable elements and precious metal. Conversely, the speaker said it is not the whole picture. If we take the cost on exploring and transporting these materials, the asteroid colony will not be profitable. In addition, we cannot guarantee the price of these materials will be the same in the future. As long as the supply of these materials increases, the price will become lower and the colony will not profitable.
Finally, the author posits that asteroids are easy to reach because a number of them periodically come within Earth's orbit. In contrast, the lecturer points out that asteroids' orbit are not usual. Although at one time asteroids are near Earth, the will travel very further since their orbit are very singular. In this case the transportation between Earth and the asteroid will be a difficult problem.
Transition Words or Phrases used:
conversely, finally, however, if, second, secondly, so, therefore, in addition, in contrast, to begin with
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 13.0 10.4613686534 124% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 9.0 5.04856512141 178% => OK
Conjunction : 8.0 7.30242825607 110% => OK
Relative clauses : 6.0 12.0772626932 50% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 22.412803532 89% => OK
Preposition: 33.0 30.3222958057 109% => OK
Nominalization: 3.0 5.01324503311 60% => More nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1352.0 1373.03311258 98% => OK
No of words: 263.0 270.72406181 97% => OK
Chars per words: 5.14068441065 5.08290768461 101% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.02706775958 4.04702891845 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.60492628808 2.5805825403 101% => OK
Unique words: 153.0 145.348785872 105% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.58174904943 0.540411800872 108% => OK
syllable_count: 420.3 419.366225166 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 3.0 3.25607064018 92% => OK
Article: 12.0 8.23620309051 146% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 1.25165562914 320% => Less adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 4.0 2.5761589404 155% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 17.0 13.0662251656 130% => OK
Sentence length: 15.0 21.2450331126 71% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 23.6189472941 49.2860985944 48% => The essay contains lots of sentences with the similar length. More sentence varieties wanted.
Chars per sentence: 79.5294117647 110.228320801 72% => OK
Words per sentence: 15.4705882353 21.698381199 71% => OK
Discourse Markers: 6.23529411765 7.06452816374 88% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 0.0 4.19205298013 0% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 4.0 4.33554083885 92% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 9.0 4.45695364238 202% => Less negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 4.0 4.27373068433 94% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.136679493933 0.272083759551 50% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0456231731015 0.0996497079465 46% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0285754428001 0.0662205650399 43% => Sentences are similar to each other.
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.0836723568056 0.162205337803 52% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0220221972296 0.0443174109184 50% => Paragraphs are similar to each other. Some content may get duplicated or it is not exactly right on the topic.
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 10.5 13.3589403974 79% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 56.25 53.8541721854 104% => OK
smog_index: 3.1 5.55761589404 56% => Smog_index is low.
flesch_kincaid_grade: 9.1 11.0289183223 83% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.24 12.2367328918 100% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.7 8.42419426049 103% => OK
difficult_words: 72.0 63.6247240618 113% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 6.0 10.7273730684 56% => Linsear_write_formula is low.
gunning_fog: 8.0 10.498013245 76% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.2008830022 80% => OK
What are above readability scores?
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Rates: 76.6666666667 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 23.0 Out of 30
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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.