A man wakes up, climbs out of bed, and goes to the window.  Outside is the brilliant blue of Earth’s oceans juxtaposed against the stark blackness of space.  The man is a worker in an orbital shipyard, one of several that have been put into place to fuel mankind’s desire for knowledge of the cosmos.  Each of the three main dry docks is capable of supporting the construction of a vessel that could easily reach the moon or even Mars with a few alterations.

Away from the main construction docks are laboratories and observatories for experimenting in every imaginable subject and viewing the stars without atmospheric interference.  Scientists work in these labs almost non-stop, trying to unlock the mysteries found in complex chemical reactions, organic synthesis, and DNA.  The data obtained in these studies is recorded by myriad computers and compiled into one set of mainframes operating under neural net algorithms that allow the entire system to function like a human brain, searching for patterns, organizing related data, and constantly reworking its own code to run more efficiently.

If the amount of time and money we invest into it is a testament to the growth of our technology, then we have indeed risen from rags to riches; and it will only continue to grow.  As our level of technology has advanced, we have gone from the room-sized ENIAC computing engine to Mac personal computers to palmtop Personal Digital Assistants that are thousands of times more powerful.  With this ability to pack more power into a smaller package and the ever-expanding field of robotics, we will soon be able to launch intelligent robotic explorers to explore the cosmos while we focus on unlocking the mysteries within ourselves: those of the body (DNA) and the mind (consciousness).

Since I was very young, I have always been fascinated by all these things.  I was always fascinated by how an airplane could defy gravity, how a beam of light traveled through air and space, how you could fuse atoms to unleash the power of a thousand suns; always HOW.  In these scattered pieces of HOW, the cogs of the machine, a thinking man could always find a WHY.  Why is this of use?  Why does it behave the way it does?  Why was it created?  These questions have been around since man decided to think for himself.  The answers to those questions have been discovered over the years as technology has advanced, though there are still many more to be found.  I hope to someday find some of those answers myself.

*This is my NASA apprenticeship essay (the initial draft anyways - please excuse syntactical suckage).  Comments are welcome.