GMAT Essays (AWA)

ESSAY QUESTION:
The following appeared in a science magazine:

"The "Space Race" of the 1960's between the USA and Russia was very expensive but it yielded a tremendous number of technological advances. These advances have provided many economic and humanitarian benefits. The benefits have more than paid for the effort and money spent during the Space Race and therefore the government should make allowances within the budget to pay for a manned Mars landing by 2020."

In the preceding argument, the author claims that although the "Space Race" of the 1960's between the USA and Russia was very expensive, it yielded a tremendous number of technological advances. The further advances have provided many economic and humanitarian benefits. These benefits have more than paid for the effort and money spent during the Space Race. The author thus proposes that the government should make allowances within the budget to pay for a manned Mars landing by 2020. The reasoning for his proposal consists of a lot of dubious assumptions which aren't backed by enough evidences. His proposal has a lot of flaws and are quite unconvincing. The author takes a very general approach and assumes that whatever happened in the past would happen in the future as well. There are couple of reasons why this proposal is flawed.

Firstly, the author assumes that investments in the space race of 1960's would bring similar results as a manned Mars landing in 2020. The author misses the fact the early space race in 1960's was with respect to moon which is quite closer to earth than Mars. Thus, the expenses or investments involved in the Mars mission could be much higher than the investments made in mission of 1960's.

Secondly, the early mission in 1960's was more related to moon which has a lot of impact on Earth. For example, gravitational pull of earth results in high and low tides. Thus, the research at that time was indeed useful in predicting a lot of Moon's impact on earth. However, Mars doesn't impacts the earth to such an extent. The primary reason for the researchers to go ahead with the Mars mission is confirm whether life exists on Mars. This motive however might not be quite useful to our planet on humanitarian grounds. Thus, the author's assumption that the benefits of Mars mission are comparable to benefits of Space Race in 1960's needs to be supported with a cost benefit analysis.

Thirdly, as it is much talked about, global warming is an issue which most of the governments have highly prioritized. Also, there are many other areas which the budget needs to focus on. Thus, the author's assumption that the governments have enough cash allowances available in their budget to fund this Mars mission is flawed as well. The author need to provide enough evidences to support this assumption

In sum, to strengthen his proposal, the author should have provided enough evidences which makes his reasoning compelling. The author should have provided evidences to prove that the governments are in a position to fund the Mars mission from the allowances of the budget. In addition to this, the author should have provides a detailed cost benefit analysis to strengthen his stance.