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 given opinion piece argues in favour of investing resources in unmanned space flight, on the premise that unmanned space probes and satellites gather information with fewer associated risks. The entire argument is built on those associated costs and risks.
First, let us examine and probe the line of reasoning. It is clear that manned space flight has its risks. However, can unmanned projects yield the same amount of precise information? Astronauts can carry out experiments at a better pace than machines; since, although machines may not be victim to exhaustion, in case of any kind of software failures, debugging them will create a whole plethora of complications. A human can do things quick, and voice issues, if any, directly to the on-ground scientists.
Next, is the risk associated with manned missions unmitigatable? Has research in reducing such kinds of risk plateaued? The argument assumes that this is the case; however taking away funds and resouces from this, based on the given opinion, would exacerbate the risks instead of solving them. Just because the current state of development in the area of unmanned space flight may be costly and dangerous, this doesn't justify abandoning ship. Investing in manned space flight could lead to more research and better safety measures, making it less dangerous and economical. Hence, this argument for taking away those funds is unjustified.
Also, the argument assumes space flight to be a monolithic field, where the information to be gathered from most missions is similar. This assumption is frail; did the (mentioned) unmanned space probes cover a wide enough range of experiments? Can such a system be hacked or misused by other entities, in such a way that on-ground scientists can't solve it? The recent successes have been reported to have delivered a lot of useful information, though the scope of this information has not been emphasized at all. Humans could even surpass this amount of information retrieval. Security aspects also have been considered to be an afterthought in this argument.
Lastly, the opinion is pretty vague in specifying the kinds of space probes that were sent unmanned; the argument assumes that manned and unmanned missions fulfill the same scientific purposes, and that unmanned space flight can fully replace manned missions. This is a shaky assumption, since every space mission is different, with varying goals. The success of the mentioned unmanned space probes could justify an argument in favour of unmanned flight in those specific areas, rather than the space flight industry as a whole. It does not justify the more general statement of encouraging investments in unmanned space flight.
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Comments
e-rater score report
Attribute Value Ideal
Final score: 4.5 out of 6
Category: Good Excellent
No. of Grammatical Errors: 0 2
No. of Spelling Errors: 7 2
No. of Sentences: 23 15
No. of Words: 433 350
No. of Characters: 2213 1500
No. of Different Words: 218 200
Fourth Root of Number of Words: 4.562 4.7
Average Word Length: 5.111 4.6
Word Length SD: 2.618 2.4
No. of Words greater than 5 chars: 167 100
No. of Words greater than 6 chars: 120 80
No. of Words greater than 7 chars: 92 40
No. of Words greater than 8 chars: 50 20
Use of Passive Voice (%): 0 0
Avg. Sentence Length: 18.826 21.0
Sentence Length SD: 9.197 7.5
Use of Discourse Markers (%): 0.435 0.12
Sentence-Text Coherence: 0.289 0.35
Sentence-Para Coherence: 0.486 0.50
Sentence-Sentence Coherence: 0.072 0.07
Number of Paragraphs: 5 5
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 130, Rule ID: DID_BASEFORM[1]
Message: The verb 'can' requires the base form of the verb: 'project'
Suggestion: project
...ht has its risks. However, can unmanned projects yield the same amount of precise inform...
^^^^^^^^
Line 5, column 412, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: doesn't
...light may be costly and dangerous, this doesnt justify abandoning ship. Investing in m...
^^^^^^
Line 7, column 341, Rule ID: CANT[1]
Message: Did you mean 'can't' or 'cannot'?
Suggestion: can't; cannot
...in such a way that on-ground scientists cant solve it? The recent successes have bee...
^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
also, first, hence, however, if, lastly, may, so, kind of
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 20.0 19.6327345309 102% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 12.0 12.9520958084 93% => OK
Conjunction : 11.0 11.1786427146 98% => OK
Relative clauses : 8.0 13.6137724551 59% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 27.0 28.8173652695 94% => OK
Preposition: 52.0 55.5748502994 94% => OK
Nominalization: 18.0 16.3942115768 110% => OK
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 2278.0 2260.96107784 101% => OK
No of words: 432.0 441.139720559 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.27314814815 5.12650576532 103% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.55901411391 4.56307096286 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.71565960657 2.78398813304 98% => OK
Unique words: 231.0 204.123752495 113% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.534722222222 0.468620217663 114% => OK
syllable_count: 703.8 705.55239521 100% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.59920159681 100% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 6.0 4.96107784431 121% => OK
Article: 9.0 8.76447105788 103% => OK
Subordination: 4.0 2.70958083832 148% => OK
Conjunction: 2.0 1.67365269461 119% => OK
Preposition: 5.0 4.22255489022 118% => OK
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 23.0 19.7664670659 116% => OK
Sentence length: 18.0 22.8473053892 79% => The Avg. Sentence Length is relatively short.
Sentence length SD: 57.9229655947 57.8364921388 100% => OK
Chars per sentence: 99.0434782609 119.503703932 83% => OK
Words per sentence: 18.7826086957 23.324526521 81% => OK
Discourse Markers: 2.47826086957 5.70786347227 43% => More transition words/phrases wanted.
Paragraphs: 5.0 5.15768463074 97% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 5.25449101796 57% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 7.0 8.20758483034 85% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 11.0 6.88822355289 160% => OK
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 5.0 4.67664670659 107% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.259638262125 0.218282227539 119% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.0778138254152 0.0743258471296 105% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0821333060756 0.0701772020484 117% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.160556754127 0.128457276422 125% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.08259205514 0.0628817314937 131% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.8 14.3799401198 89% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 53.21 48.3550499002 110% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 7.1628742515 123% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.3 12.197005988 84% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 13.29 12.5979740519 105% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.48 8.32208582834 102% => OK
difficult_words: 108.0 98.500998004 110% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 8.5 12.3882235529 69% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.2 11.1389221557 83% => OK
text_standard: 9.0 11.9071856287 76% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 75.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 4.5 Out of 6
---------------------
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.