User:Joeygaig/sandbox

Article Proposal and Bibliography
For my article I have decided to focus on the Wikipedia article talking about Space colonization

I chose this article because under the guide on WikiEdu, this article had a relative high number of people browsing it, while it still received a C grade and had a lot of original information.

I could fix this article in many ways. One of the corrections I have made to the article were inline citations for some information that was critical to the paragraph, yet had no references, like the monetary value of an asteroid or the pros of power projected from space to earth and other stations. I would also add information about the cons of space colonization, as this article is only the pros of space colonization, and only skims on the cons, such as the loneliness for the first pioneers. As an author of an article, you have to maintain neutrality, and this had no information about the downsides of space colonization. I would include in a separate paragraph that. while there are many pros, there are just as many reasons to not pursue this endeavor. Colonizing Mars for example, would have a tremendous affect on the human body. The Martian atmosphere has a much lower level of gravity, would could lead to our anatomy becoming weaker, preventing a return to Earth. Also, the ozone layer on Mars is almost non-existent, as well as almost every one of the other targets (Mars, Venus, Titan). This drastically increases our chances of radiation poisoning. Some might argue that a threat always comes with a new frontier, and I would agree but any colonization would cost hundreds of billions of dollars. The risk of not only the deaths of hundreds, as well as a potential collapse of the global economy due to the needs of colonization, are important facts that would represent the other side of this argument. Another important fact as well is the potential of microbial life on the surface of these planets we would visit. Mankind has just recently started exploring the stars, and our understanding of life on other planets is just as infant as space exploration. These microbial life could also be highly infectious, and if brought back to earth could have devastating consequences. Another consequence of throwing our resources into space colonization would be regulation and power struggles between corporations and governments. As of now, the private sector is the biggest investor in space exploration, and if this trend continues, could lead to colonization conflicts and possibly wars back home. This was one of the fundamental reasons outlined in the author's article, stating that expansion of mankind could reduce the chance of war back home and save the ecosystem. Another reason, as stated in the Ukrainian essay on problems with human expansion into space, is the problems of conception in a hostile space environment. Although humans have made advancements on colonization in terms of critical life support, we have not made any in terms of reproduction in space, and the consequences it could have on the human body. An astronaut sent into space is already acclimated to the atmosphere of Earth, so reentry for them would be some weeks in rehabilitation, while a person that has been born in space could be catastrophic if they attempted to acclimate back into an earth-like environment. "We are a circadian species, and if you don't have the proper lighting to maintain that chronobiology, it can create significant problems for crew members"

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2577400/

https://www.inc.com/business-insider/elon-musk-spacex-plan-colonize-mars-how-will-people-survive.html

https://schooledbyscience.com/terraform-mars-possible/

https://www.dailybreeze.com/2017/12/02/space-exploration-regulations-need-overhaul-new-report-says/

https://zipar.org/discussion-paper/political-moral-security-challenges-space-colonization/

Krichevskiy S. V. (2012). Space Colonization: Problems and Prospects. Filosofiâ I Kosmologiâ, 11(1), 135-143.

http://www.ispcjournal.org/journals/2012/2012-071.pdf

https://www.nasa.gov/hrp/bodyinspace

https://anxiety.psych.ucla.edu/nasa-study-stress-management-and-resilience-training-for-optimal-performance-smart-op

https://phys.org/news/2017-09-e-mental-health-tool-key-astronauts.html

Comments from Dr. Vetter
Hi Joe, Nice proposal here! And thank you for taking my advice and changing the article you're going to work on. I like the level of detail you have in your proposal as far as the types of changes you would like to make. But some of your sources might be challenged in Wikipedia, especially the .coms. I like the .gov source a lot. Can you use the Library Databases to add any additional academic (especially reference) sources? Let's talk more in our conference. -Dr. Vetter

Donna Strickland was a renowned Physicist who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. However, even with all her achievements that allowed her to win, Wikipedia removed her biography because she was not renowned enough for the site

http://www.artoftheprint.com/artistpages/gentle_rattner_esther_people.htm

Gentle Rattner