Research Update

                 My research on space exploration has been pretty enjoyable so far. I have learned a great deal about this topic in the few weeks I have been researching it. As of now, I'm still not totally sure of what my focused topic will be, but I have it narrowed down to either if future spaceflight will be run by government or private companies or if manned, unmanned, or a combination of humans and robots would be the most beneficial way to continue exploration of the solar system. In my research I have found multiple sources that talk about each topic and some that even talk about both. I am still looking through my sources to find which will yield greater results.

                One issue with my topic is how slow the space industry moves. Because of how much care and effort that goes into a single launch, the whole industry moves slow. Even simple failures on the machines could have catastrophic results, wasting lots of time and money. I just read an article about how a small glitch in SpaceX’s Dragon capsule could have completely ruined its mission of delivering over 1 ton of supplies to the international space station. http://www.foxnews.com/science/2013/03/01/spacex-rocket-poised-for-flight/. Luckily, flight control was able to right the problem. In this industry, there is very little room for error.

SpaceX's Dragon capsule at the International Space Station

                While researching, I have found that Diingo has been incredibly useful to me. I really enjoy the fact that I am able to annotate webpages instead of having to copy and paste it on to word or do something else to annotate it. I also love that if I find an interesting or useful looking article I can add it to my Diingo library to read it later at my leisure.