My personal dream is to travel into space. The privatization of space travel is beginning: as soon as resources are discovered that make space travel profitable, space travel will become commonplace.
Privatization of the space industry offers the opportunity to involve more people, and therefore more ideas, in space travel. I first heard about Planetary Resources in Popular Mechanics magazine. They are a company that has set out to mine near-earth asteroids. This idea of developing an off planet economy is so appealing that it caught the attention of Google’s founders, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt. They, like me, believe that industrialization of space is the key to human expansion and survival throughout our solar system. Unfortunately, space has become a gimmick, a parlor trick much like the scientific endeavors of early ‘natural philosophers’. Many view space travel as a money and resource sink. I do not.
Planetary Resources’ goal is to start sending probes out in 2013. The real work, designing vehicles to for mining asteroids and returning the resources, will begin right about the time I will be graduating from college. I envision working to design the next generation of industrial spacecraft that may be necessary for this fledgling industry. Companies who aim to further space travel and exploration are looking for young, enthusiastic and intelligent individuals who want to further the development of the space industry. When space travel has an industry to offer, technology and profit will follow. First mining, but what next? Faster than light travel, Mars colonies? Whatever it is, I want to be involved.
Why do I want to attend Purdue? I am interested in Engineering and Astrophysics. This is partly from a love of math and how it relates to the world. This is why I adore calculus; while it is by far the most challenging and engaging class I have taken thus far in my high school career, it is also practical. Studying graphs, integrals and derivatives, the way that distance derives to velocity which derives to acceleration (and so on and so forth), is so... awesome. Calculus proved to so engaging, such a complex but pleasant challenge that many in my class (including myself) tried to convince our teacher to teach calculus III. Unfortunately, this was not possible, but I anxiously await college in order to continue this study of math.
I have not yet taken physics in high school. I have only tasted it, through studying thermodynamics in chemistry and the motion of objects through calculus, physics represents to me the ultimate combination of understanding principles and providing practical applications. A friend partially explained the principles of mirrors to me when I was studying for the SAT Physics test. I could never have imagined all of the aspects of mirrors. The differences between a real and non-real image, what changes whether they are inverted or not: these were concepts I had never even considered when I looked at my reflection in a mirror. While my knowledge of physics is burgeoning, I look forward to the chance and challenge of combining my curiosities and interests in these fields in the coming semester of high school and in college.
At Purdue, I can count on an education that promotes research and development of new technologies, ideas and sciences, and an environment that encourages business applications of that knowledge. Purdue offers some of the best and fully developed courses in the areas of aeronautical and astronautical engineering. I know that if I attend Purdue University, I can achieve my dreams.
This essay got me into Purdue. That and really hard work in high school. Well, not really. But its an example of what works.
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