Wolfe’s Point
This article ends with, “At this moment, that remains the only solution to recovering NASA’s true destiny, which is, of course, to build that bridge to the stars.” (p.1) This was the main point of Tom Wolfe’s essay. Wolfe (2009) said that the American Space Program “died in infancy at 10:56 p.m. New York time on July 20, 1969, the moment the foot of Apollo 11’s Commander Armstrong touched the surface of the Moon,” (p. 1) and that money has been wasted on the program for a very long time. To him, going to the moon was not something that benefited the U.S. in any way. Throughout the 60’s, the Soviet Union and the U.S. had a small space war. NASA just wanted to get to the moon before the Soviet Union did to give them an edge.
The opening statement made by Wolfe showed a clear disappointment geared toward the actions of NASA, the American Space Program, and also it gave readers an idea of what the article was going to consist of. He had a lot of solid points and he was able to back them up with examples and quotes. The article was organized well and each paragraph was constructed the correct way. The quotations in the body of his article, mainly the ones made by Wernher von Braun, helped to back up Wolfe’s ideas and showed that even an expert, someone that was part of NASA, wasn’t so sure about the reason why the program was doing the things that they were doing. Usage of those quotes and examples to back himself up on his ideas made it very easy to side with him.
Wolfe, T. (2009). One Giant Leap to Nowhere. New York Times. Retrieved from
Apathetic Minds 