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5
OPINION

Thursday, May 21, 2015

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

The two coolest words in the 

English language are not “syner-
gistic globalization” or “real-time” 
or even “cellar door.” They may not 
be the most poetically underused 
or grammatically correct, but the 
words “space tech” represent some 
of the most exciting changes taking 
place around us in laboratories, uni-
versities and even high above the 
atmosphere, in outer space itself.

First, let’s talk about thrust. Most 

of the useful energy of a rocket 
launch goes toward putting the 
hunk of metal and plastic in Earth’s 
orbit — all the fire and explosions 
that accompany a SpaceX rocket 
aren’t present once you’re a few 
hundred kilometers up. At that 
point, satellites that intend to stick 
around use more passive forms of 
rocket propulsion powered not by 
chemicals, but often by clean, quiet 
electricity. Electric propulsion (EP 
for short) is what keeps our TV and 
communication satellites from fall-
ing out of their orbits with small 
controlled thrusts here and there 
carefully vectored through algo-
rithms. It isn’t very strong — exert-
ing forces comparable to the weight 
of only a few ounces — but very effi-
cient, often an order of magnitude 
more so than its chemical cousin.

As such, EP isn’t just for sup-

porting altitude — long range mis-
sions like the Voyager II, and more 
recently NASA JPL’s Dawn mission, 
use electric propulsion to traverse 
long distances by slowly, steadily 
building acceleration. Dawn uses 
a state of the art, electrically pow-
ered ion engine to explore two of 
the solar system’s largest asteroids: 
Vesta and Ceres. It’s the first human 
spacecraft to successfully orbit two 

celestial bodies over the course of 
one mission, and this feat was only 
made possible through the use of 
its specialized thruster. Here at the 
University, we have the Plasmady-
namics and Electric Propulsion Lab 
that is working on a number of EP 
projects, including the adaptation 
of electric propulsion to smaller and 
smaller satellites.

On top of propulsion technolo-

gies, research happens all the time 
in space. The International Space 
Station is an internationally run 
space station hanging in low Earth 
orbit. One of the major uses of the 
station is to study phenomena that 
normally wouldn’t be possible on 
Earth due to gravity. One of the 
more 
interesting 
experiments 

commonly performed involves the 
behavior of liquids in zero-g: enter 
the ISS espresso machine.

As any workaholic knows, caf-

feine is an essential part of staying 
focused when working after hours. 
Astronauts are no exception. The 
recent SpaceX launch brought a 
number of essential supplies to the 
space station, including the ISS’s 
very first espresso machine, which 
according to NASA, “may lead to 
new or improved brewing meth-
ods” when it is tested in micro-
gravity. The machine, referred to 
as “ISSpresso” also allows NASA 
to test their new beverage holder 
termed the “Capillary Beverage 
Study” which takes advantage 
of surface tension and other liq-
uid fluid phenomena to improve 
pouring in zero-g. (Try to imag-
ine pouring liquid into a cup when 
there is no ‘down’ established 
by gravity!)

Finally, let’s talk about the pas-

sion that the development of space 
technology inspires, even if it never 
makes it to orbit. Here at the Uni-
versity, a small team of students 
led by Engineering junior Rob 
Gitten is hard at work designing 
for humanity’s future in space. 
As part of NASA’s Revolution-
ary Aerospace Systems Concepts 
- Academic Linkage (RASC-AL) 
competition, this group has come 
up with a plan to build a 24-per-
son town on Mars. The mission 
relies on space tech both old and 
new, utilizing both SpaceX’s reus-
able rocket technology and NASA’s 
more conservative space launch 
system. The RASC-AL team met 
every year and recently presented 
their proposal at a meeting of the 
American Institute of Aeronautics 
and Astronautics. With the dedica-
tion of true Wolverines, they are 
working for a day when humanity 
has a new home in the sky.

Opportunities 
like 
RASC-AL 

bring to light many of the positive 
impacts space-oriented technol-
ogy has both on the scientists and 
engineers who design it and the 
people, like you or I, whose lives 
are infinitely improved by it. Satel-
lites bring us pictures of our planet 
and others, opening our eyes to the 
splendor of the cosmos and our 
place within it. Rockets by their 
very nature inspire dreams, and 
technology, such as electric propul-
sion, is the reality of those dreams 
— the end product of what might 
have started out merely as ‘what if.’ 
And coffee in space is pretty cool no 
matter which way you spin it.

Arun Nagpal is a rising 

Engineering junior.

Exploring space tech

ARUN NAGPAL | VIEWPOINT
advancing to the top sectors in 
their field.

At the outset of their careers, 

women are almost on par with 
the men. Young women — as they 
begin their professional careers 
between the ages of 25 and 34 — 
earn roughly 90 percent of what 
their male counterparts earn. 
Soon afterwards, the wage dispar-
ity between the sexes expands as 
women age. This aggravation of 
the gap leads to women between 
the age of 45 and 54 earning only 
around 76 per-
cent of what 
their male col-
leagues 
earn, 

according 
to 

the U.S. Bureau 
of Labor Statis-
tics. As women 
approach 
motherhood, 
the need for 
flexibility and 
reduced work hours increases. 
Likewise, studies published in 
both the Journal of Social Issues 
and in the American Journal 
of Sociology found that moth-
ers were perceived as possessing 
lower levels of competence in the 
workplace, a perception that can 
hinder a woman’s progress in the 
professional realm.

Negotiation between working 

and caring for children is a deci-
sion women will likely consider as 
they choose to begin having fami-
lies. However, one initial step to, at 
the very least, reduce the possibil-
ity women will have to delay their 
professional or financial ambi-
tions due to domestic obligations 
is to improve the nation’s current 
stance on paid maternity leave.

Pregnancy and maternity leave 

are issues that may never affect 
some women’s professional lives, 
and at the moment, it’s a situa-
tion that’s extremely distant from 
the mindsets of my friends and 
me. However, as young women 
enter the workforce and the topic 
begins to enter the realm of pos-
sibility more and more, prospec-
tive maternity concerns become 
an influential force on whether or 
not specific career steps are taken. 
Due to the fact the Family and 
Medical Leave Act only requires 
employers to offer 12 weeks of 
unpaid leave once an employee has 

worked at an institution for a full 
year, many women may neglect 
switching jobs, or even seeking a 
promotion, if there’s the slight-
est possibility they could become 
pregnant in the near future.

Currently, the United States 

severely lags behind in the assis-
tance it offers to women who 
recently gave birth. It’s the only 
developed nation that neglects 
to offer paid maternity leave to 
new mothers, and the United 
States and Papua New Guinea are 

the only two 
nations in the 
world that fail 
to do so. New 
mothers — in 
an attempt to 
balance 
both 

caring 
for 

their child and 
maintaining 
their 
profes-

sional 
goals 

— often try to aggregate a combi-
nation of sick days and vacation 
days in addition to their limited 
allotment of leave days to counter-
act this insufficiency. 

By refusing to offer paid mater-

nity leave, the U.S. is neglecting a 
widely accepted practice capable of 
alleviating some of the financial and 
professional constraints women 
face as they become new mothers.

For women trying to plan their 

futures, the desire to adequately 
maintain their professional and 
personal ambitions is a task that’s 
bound to be met with a certain 
degree of difficulty. While the cur-
rent outlook illustrates a promising 
future where women can continue 
to make significant contributions 
to society even in the latter half of 
their lives, potential motherhood 
shouldn’t immediately signify a 
regression in their careers. Yes, 
the respective balancing act will 
someday be very difficult for a mul-
titude of women, and it will be due 
to a variety of factors, one of which 
is the lack of paid maternity leave. 
However, when one factor is known 
to financially and professionally 
constrain new mothers and has 
been remedied time and time again 
by numerous nations, why would 
we not strive to change it?

— Melissa Scholke can be 

reached at melikaye@umich.edu.

Currently, the United States 

severely lags behind in the 

assistance it offers to women 

who recently gave birth.

