The Wykehamist
planet Earth) only began to appear late on in history. The Ancient Greek story of Icarus did not transgress the boundary of Earth and space: Icarus fell before he reached the boundary. There is an ancient Chinese story of a man who used rockets to propel himself to the Moon( for reference, the Chinese only invented gunpowder, used in rockets, 1,000 to 1,500 years ago). It is presumed that he died or burnt up before he ever reached space, let alone the Moon. Before Domingo Gonsales, these were the only well-known stories about high-altitude flight. For centuries, the sky was thought of as a background that changed as the seasons and days passed. It revolved around Earth, as did everything, according to common belief before Nicolaus Copernicus’ heliocentric theory became the accepted standard. And furthermore, what point is there in trying to reach a background? There is no substance, no material, no stars or planets to explore on what is effectively a surface. This is why The Man in the Moone was written when it was: in 1638, after Copernicus. Now that Earth was perceived as an orbiting body, and that some of the other planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn, had been observed, suddenly there was a new sense of excitement around space, which was neither a mere celestial background, nor as barren as was previously believed. This is a major reason why space travel stories are so appealing – it’ s exploration, akin to Vasco da Gama, Christopher Columbus and James Cook. Space exploration is a new type of adventure that will put your name in the history books. Authors of such stories flaunt their artistic licence in an effort to make their works exciting and gripping. Gonsales presents space travel as a spindly, goosepowered contraption. Now, at the time, this was what was available. What flies? Geese. Surely geese should be the go-to for flying to the Moon, then? Other authors have envisioned cannons that fire a man to space: for example, Le Voyage dans la Lune, a French film from 1902 about being fired to the moon in an oversized artillery shell. Still others envisioned rockets, especially after they were employed to actually put humans in space for real. Even after the Apollo missions, which saw humans walk on the surface of the Moon, this is as far as we have got. We still have alien planets, alien landscapes, and alien life to discover. Gonsales himself wrote about aliens, and they also featured in Le Voyage dans la Lune. Overall, space travel is a type of exploration unlike anything else. To leave your planet is exhilarating and bold, and to discover things up there is enticing. Putting it in a text or film makes it accessible to the people, who can only imagine what lies out there. And no-one truly knows. That’ s the magic of space exploration.
That’ s my honest attempt. Thirty minutes, pen and paper, and my own mind. Nothing more. This exemplar should, I hope, give you some sense of what Election candidates need to be equipped for. It’ s not just facts and analysis, but a broad and open mind that really is the identifying factor of a Collegeman.
Felix Edmondson( Coll: 2020-)
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