Moon

The lyrical novel, ‘Meridian’ by Alice Walker, merits a lyrical introduction. Let me do it with an allegory: “The full moon is shining in the sky. It’s full moon day. Observing the   beauty of the moon, a tempest rises in the ocean beneath. The ocean, in an effort to reach the moon, sends the roaring waves, one after another. But alas! Can the waves reach the moon howsoever big they may be? Can the moon ever come down to the Earth, whatever be the intensity of the wish!—and yet the struggle goes on for ever!

The truth lies in the struggle that will never end! The love for the cause needs to be on similar lines comparable to the struggle of the ocean to reach the moon. That the waves will ever be able to reach the moon is impossibility so also the possibility of the ocean giving up the struggle is not at all there! The approach of Alice Walker to the many problems she faced many stages she passed through, many pleasant and unpleasant situations she was exposed to—how she handled them with equanimity and grandeur is the actual sum and substance of the theme of he book! This book is not meant for reading, it is worth studying. The substance of her experiences is application-worthy in private and public life of an individual. She lived through the tough civil rights era, and topics like interracial dating are not easy to handle!

The readers of a book expect perfect characters. If there are ten characters, they expect all of them to be perfect, free of any blemish, and true to the salt. Walker has proved in this novel, incomplete characters, the non-coherent ones, can contribute to a perfect story. To expect a uniform writing style in a book, is expecting too much from the author. It depends upon the moods of the writer. The style can vary from chapter to chapter, and even in between the chapter. It is the author’s right to experiment with his characters. The hide and seek approach as for the inner lives of the characters, the method of depicting the same is the prerogative of the author. The author has the purpose behind it, which may not be obvious to the ordinary reader. This is not the shortcoming of Alice Walker; this is her strength!

The book depicts the struggle of the black people during the civil rights movement and the gender struggle of women. The former issue is mainly relevant to USA and the later is the universal one. The democratic society of USA guarantees freedom, equality and co-prosperity. But a sort of pseudo-democracy which is vulnerable to individual or collective egoism, exclusionary racism, gender bias, hegemonic nationalism and ideological fundamentalism still persists, operates with immunity and show their telling effects on the society from time to time.

Meridian is a young black woman and she has the tremendous sense of involvement in whatever she does, to the extent that people think her to be slightly crazy. She is like, any sensitive individual! The story has a number of dream sequences! She is a civil rights worker with a difference! She is afraid of her own black people; her fear is that the solution to the problem of race is creating another more serious problem, dehumanizing the blacks!   She is guided more by emotions and constantly thinks whether the remedy (the action plan) is worst than the disease!

On slightest provocation, racial riots erupt in USA even today. The pages of race history and relationships, daubed in bloodshed ask a crying question. How to make this Planet Earth heaven like? The answer is simple, straight and direct. Eyes full of understanding, heart full of love and the life that refuses conflicts-these alone are enough! That Meridian veers round to spirituality to find solution to the various social issues that she is involved in, is the right approach. No “isms” have solved problems faced by humanity and there is no hope that they ever will! The real spirituality is not something that is preached from the ivory tower. For, that which is no practical can not be spiritual either.

Unless the thought process of the individuals, whether white or black, man or woman, change, the action process can not change. When the thoughts are changed, the mind is changed; when the mid is changed, the man is changed; when the man is changed, the society is changed; when the society is changed, the nation is changed; such changed nations can contribute to the all-pervading happiness. Meridian is involved in the method of securing the type of happiness she visualizes, that is possible through the inner strength of an individual. No enactments or laws can bring about the inner change which is so essential for social harmony.

The story weaves around Meridian, her black on-and-off boy friend Truman Held, and her white Northern best friend Lynne. The civil rights struggle has affected all of them in one way or the other, an element of mutual distrust hangs around their relationship. They are neither totally good, nor totally bad; they are the victims of circumstances. Alice Walkers handles this unique relationship of Meridian very well, in a peculiar non-coherent form, with sensitivity.

If you believe that life is to be lived in is trials, tribulations, duty and beauty-ask Meridian- she would say, ‘yes!’ She is willing to go to any extent to render help to others. She is aghast at the thought of one individual hurting the other, in the name of race. She finds it difficult to comprehend this situation, because her heart is the spring of love. She is incapable of hating and hurting others! For some of her follies, one is confused whether Meridian deserves condemnation or sympathy.

She got pregnant in ignorance and she had to leave the school. For her work in civil rights, she is offered a college scholarship and she leaves the baby with her relatives and departs. She realizes that it is sin and shame to give up the baby and deny mother’s love. After aborting Truman’s baby, she gets sterilized. She broods extensively– that she is denied her mother’s love and about her own failure as a mother. She turns stubborn, and her inability to forgive bothers her. But at the same time, she concludes that she had to make the tough choice, otherwise she will not achieve anything in life.

Her indecisions within the decisions that she made continue to follow and haunt her. She is unable to find happiness in her private (family) life and disappointment t is in store for her in her public life also. Her trusted co workers quit and move to better their own prospectus. Despite the paralyzing illness, she continues to work in the most difficult places in the deep South. Non-violence is her flagship and she trusts this method to work and deliver permanent good for the people with whom she is involved, for their welfare. Getting the civil rights is not the end of the journey. This movement has raised many social, political and philosophical issues.

Meridian is an extraordinary character created by Alice Walker that struggles and actually wishes to live like an ordinary character. She is determined to free black people, but circumstances so develop that she is obliged to lead the struggle alone, after the Movement is declared dead. She lives amongst the poorest of the poor in the South, turns poor like them, takes leadership in the non-violent protest marches to give them confidence as well as to secure improvement in conditions in their communities, register them as votes. That was their method of resistance, and to make their voice heard.

To her, efforts for individual perfection and fight for social justice for the people must go on together like the train that runs on two parallel tracks. Society is a big and complicated conglomeration of individuals. Spirituality doesn’t guarantee equality as per the secular norms-it promises equanimity. Meridian’s struggle is personal and spiritual. The avowed spiritual path is to march from darkness to light. Meridian agrees with her friends that nonviolence has failed to free black people, at the same time she is not willing to give up her commitment to nonviolence. The result achieved from violence can only tender impermanent results. With violence one may achieve certain temporary goals, but it is definitely not the food for the soul! “Brutal force has not won anything durable,” –was it not Adolph Hitler who said so!

Meridian says, “perhaps it will be my part to walk behind the real revolutionaries-those who know they must spill blood in order to help the poor and the black … –and when they stop to wash off the blood and find their throats too choked with the smell of murdered flesh to sing, I will come forward and sing from memory songs they will need once more to hear. For it is the song of the people, transformed by the experience of each generation, that holds them together, and if any part of it is lost the people suffer and are without soul. If I can only do that, my role will not have been a useless one after all”. (p.201)—this is her confusion and conviction. The split-personality within her is showing and expressing!

Conclusion:

At times, Meridian is like the fire-brand revolutionary, who wields the gun; on another occasion she sits in a corner with the paper and pen! The application of non-violence to solve hard social problems requires lots of patience and sacrifice. Every sacrifice has the sacri ‘price!’ Firstly there should be a cause for the sacrifice, secondly there must be the heart for the sacrifice, thirdly there must be the girt, determination and commitment for the sacrifice and finally to receive the rewards or punishments for the sacrifice with a balanced mental attitude!

This is the toughest test!  Therefore, some drop out; some fail! And a few do succeed and they are the great ones! It is difficult to say to which category Meridian belongs! Even Alice Walker perhaps doesn’t know and that is her — the problem!

There are three main components that must be fulfilled by a project for it to be truly successful; it must be completed within the set budget, schedule and deliver the expected outcome and quality. If one of these components is not met, even if the project is completed, then the project cannot be said to be successful. Project failure is common and may result from various reasons; one of these reasons is that, the project may actually be impossible. Take for example the failure of the Apollo program, which was American spaceship that landed the first man in moon.

This project ran well from the year 1969 up to 1975. Apollo 13 failure of oxygen tank and the Apollo 204 tragedy, which led to loss of lives shows that the mission could no longer be safe as planned. Furthermore, the objectives of the project were impossible to be achieved since the main goal was to find out if human beings could survive in the moon and live comfortably or even in any other planet apart from earth. Incompetent management is another common reason that may lead to project failure. A good example is the disappearing warehouse project for a Software company in the nation.

The warehouse varnished not only from the physical view but in watchful eyes of a retailer who was well known in the system of automated distribution. Software glitch somehow had erased the existence of the warehouse and thus goods destined to that warehouse were diverted to other routes where as the goods in that warehouse for a certain time languished. Employees at that missing warehouse kept quiet in that time since they were receiving their pay. As the software glitch was noticed, the warehouse was then sold off and the senior management requested the employees to be quiet on the episode.

This led to the failure of that software project. Finally over-constrained is another reason that leads to their failure. Football clubs are good examples. Wenger, the Arsenal club manger had a plan to make the club to continue performing well and win all the trophies. This continued for some time but failed. This football club traces its failure at that period due to over-constrains in the management as well as in the players. This club since then has not been able to win trophies despite its continuous shines in the frequent years before.

Historically, cryogenic rocket engines have not been used for in-space applications due to their additional complexity, the mission need for high reliability, and the challenges of propellant boil-o& While the mission and vehicle architectures are not yet defined for the lunar and Martian robotic and human exploration objectives, cryogenic rocket engines offer the potential for higher performance and greater architecture/mission flexibility.

In-situ cryogenic propellant production could enable a more robust exploration program by significantly reducing the propellant mass delivered to low earth orbit, thus warranting the evaluation of cryogenic rocket engines versus the hypergolic bi-propellant engines used in the Apollo program. A multi-use engine. one which can provide the functionality that separate engines provided in the Apollo mission architecture, is desirable for lunar and Mars exploration missions because it increases overall architecture effectiveness through commonality and modularity.

The engine requirement derivation process must address each unique mission application and each unique phase within each mission. The resulting requirements, such as thrust level, performance, packaging, bum duration, number of operations; required impulses for each trajectory phase; operation after extended space or surface exposure; availability for inspection and maintenance; throttle range for planetary descent, ascent, acceleration limits and many more must be addressed.

Within engine system studies, the system and component technology, capability, and risks must be evaluated and a balance between the appropriate amount of technology-push and technology-pull must be addressed. This paper will summarize many of the key technology challenges associated with using high-performance cryogenic liquid propellant rocket engine systems and components in the exploration program architectures.

Through the use of Symbolism and Characterization In the short story “The Moths” by Helena Maria Viramontes, the author uses symbolism and characterization to paint the scene of a girl in a literary fiction that has lost her way and ends up finding herself within her Grandmother through the cycles of life.Through the eyes of an unnamed girl we relive a past that has both a traumatic ending and a new leash on life; however, we do not get there without first being shown the way, enter “The Moths”. The author utilizes opposite ends of the light spectrum to signify beginnings and endings by painting a vivid picture for the reader: “There comes a time when the sun is defiant.Just about the time when moods change, inevitable seasons of a day, transitions from one color to another, that hour or minute or second when the sun is finally defeated, finally sinks into the realization that it cannot with all its power to heal or burn, exist forever, there comes an illumination where the sun and earth meet, a final burst of burning red orange fury reminding us that although endings are inevitable, they are necessary for rebirths, and when the time came, just when I switched on the light in the kitchen to open Abuelita’s soup, it was probably then that she died” (Viramontes 4).She explains to the reader why the sun causes different shades of red and orange throughout the day, the shades themselves represent a life p of different ages, which turn different colors with the coming seasons “of the day”, as opposed to the year, at the end of that day the sun dies and a new moon is born in place of that sun, and when a moon dies the sun is reborn the next day, and so goes the cycle of life.

With this the narrator also states that “endings are inevitable” and so when we look at the Grandmother we already know that she will die because her end is, as the narrator says “inevitable”.The final line in the excerpt is perhaps the single most important piece that ties all of the usage of symbolism together. When the narrator turns the light on, a new day has started in the form of a rebirth caused by her Grandmothers death, you see, the moon in the story is not as present as the sun, however, we know that the Grandmother’s name is “Luna”, which translated in the narrators native tongue of Spanish is “moon”, we know her language is Spanish because of the consistent use of Latin terms like; “Placa”, “Menudo”, or even “Heliotrope”, which is a native plant of Peru.Since the moon is the polar opposite of the sun we can say that, in the human element of the story there is Grandma Luna which is currently at the ending of her “moon life” and at the beginning of her rebirth towards a new day as the “sun”, the light bulb, as a symbol of rebirth representing the sun, appears one more time in the story, where in the wake of her Grandmothers death, the narrator is watching the moths “fluttering to light”, carrying her Grandmother’s soul to a place were it can become reborn.I believe that the author’s carefully chosen name of “Luna” for the Grandmother was in fact to show the reader that our death is inevitable but our rebirth in terms of happiness is changeable.Equally important in the story is the use of characterization to show the reader exactly who the protagonist in the story is and what kind of life she is living, we first read of her sisters and how they act in contrast to the protagonist: “I [the narrator] wasn’t even pretty or nice like my older sisters and I just couldn’t do the girl things they could do”, the narrator first bluntly tells the reader that she is different from her sisters and then shows the reader exactly how they are not the same through the use of characterization, “My hands were too big to handle the fineries of crocheting or embroidery and I always pricked my fingers or knotted my colored threads time and time again while my sisters laughed and called me bull hands with their cute waterlike voices. ”.

With all of this information we can tell that the narrator is having difficulty in her own path and does not feel comfortable in her own body, it seems that she is more of a boy then a girl according to the standards set forth by her mother and father. But why is it that the narrator should conform to these standards? At this point we already know that they are in contrast to each other but the reason as to why is deep rooted through yet another mean, conformity.Her father is very devoted to his religious beliefs and wants his family to conform, “He would pound his hands on the table, rocking the sugar dish or spilling a cup of coffee and scream that if I didn’t go to mass every Sunday to save my goddamn sinning soul, then I had no reason to go out of the house, period. Punto final. ”, the narrator has issues with this because she does not want to conform to something she does not herself believe in. The reader knows she feels uncomfortable in a church because she says “I was alone. I know why I had never returned” when she went to the chapel, therefore we are left to the conclusion that the narrator has a free spirit that yearns to become free of the beliefs that have been bestowed upon her.

In other words she is completely opposite of her entire family, or so we see thus far.Grandma Luna is an interesting character, she does not have many lines in the story but the presentation of her character plays a very important role as to who exactly she is, where she came from, where she is going, but even more important, where she is leading the narrator. The Grandmother’s life parallels that of the narrator in the respect that sometime during her life she was also defiant, “The scars on her back which were as thick as the life lines on the palms of her hands made me realize how little I really knew of Abuelita”. This line is informative to the narrator, for the first time she realizes that she is not alone in her personal beliefs.She also wants to become free like her Grandmother is, “I liked her porch because it was shielded by the vines of the chayotes and I could get a good look at the people and car traffic on Evergreen without them knowing”, she likes the porch because the vines are growing in and around her Grandmothers home, she also feels protected by the vines. We also know she cares for her Grandmother, because of the way she talks about her, “Really, I told my Ama it was only fair”. Even before her realization of Grandma Luna’s defiance the narrator felt a strong connection to her, but seeing the scars she has a great sense of why it is that she gets along so well with her Grandmother.

They are both very much alike, and she feels “safe” around her, “I [the narrator] always felt her gray eye on me.It made me feel, in a strange sort of way, safe and guarded and not alone. Like God was supposed to make you feel”, the authors choice of the word “was”, tells us that god does not make her feel safe, instead it is her Grandmother whom she confides in. The narrator herself is defiant and even disrespectful at times, however her defiance is not done without reason; it is done because of her personal beliefs. Her mother and father have strong religious beliefs and try to force those beliefs upon her, when she does not want to conform she fakes going to church and instead, goes over to her Grandmother’s home where she finds comfort in helping her Grandmother with her daily chores.Viramontes chooses to keep the narrator unnamed so that the reader feels like they are taking on the role of the narrator, if she had named her “Alice” or “Lisa” then the audience might not have felt a strong connection with the narrator and the message of rebirth and changing your own mental status to achieve a form of enlightenment, may not have been accomplished. In the end we realize the purpose of the story, it tells about the rebirth any individual can make by changing the way they see the world.

The narrator saw the world brand new for the first time in a different light because of her Grandmother’s death and subsequent rebirth through the moths, carrying her soul to “new light”. It’s not in a literal sense that the narrator is born again; instead it’s more of a mental status change that the narrator has undergone, and because of that she is at peace with herself.

Moon Colonization July 20, 1989: President Bush uses the 20th anniversary of the first footsteps on the moon to declare that Americans should return, establish a permanent presence there, and go on to Mars (Hartmann). After Bush proposed this idea of creating a permanent colony on the moon to serve as a “pit stop” on the way to Mars, NASA took it as a mandate to start planning. This idea of moon colonies brought upon a mood that was not seen since the days of the Apollo missions. The possibilities of a moon colony are great. The problem of overcrowding could be solved.

Taking millions of people (over a matter of time) to the moon would greatly reduce the Earth’s rapidly growing population. While the people are living there, industrial factories could be built, producing goods for further space exploration. Planetary Scientist for NASA, Alan Binder, says “…slowly but surely, the way our forefathers did in the New World, we’d build up an industrial capacity in space. The moon opens up the solar system. If you have industrial capacity to build from lunar materials, the moon could be a harbor.

You could go there first, on your way to Mercury, Venus, or Mars. ” This is all seems like a good idea, that is if it didn’t cost the nation an arm and a leg to implement. Also, due to lack of knowledge, we do not know the full effects of the moons one sixth gravity effect on the human body. Furthermore, the moons lack of an atmosphere, and harsh geological conditions, would not be so kind to the equipment set up to build this industrial franchise. Not only will the colonization of the moon be costly and inefficient, but also detrimental to human health and safety.

For starters, building a spaceship that is capable of creating a force strong enough to escape the gravitational pull of the Earth, support the life of humans for days, and be able to come back down through Earths atmosphere, costs millions of dollars. The Space Shuttle Endeavour, the orbiter built to replace the Space Shuttle Challenger, cost approximately $1. 7 billion (NASA. gov). And a colony in space would need supplies due to the lack of resources on the moon. Shipping those supplies to the Space colony would cost a lot.

The cost per pound into orbit was around $1000 during the years of the space shuttle program (Allen). Incorporate inflation, and you have a multi million dollar shipment of food, clothing, tools, etc. Once all the tools are shipped and ready to build, there would be the cost of actually constructing a factory or place to live. Rome (on Earth) was not built in a day; imagine trying to build a city in the extreme weather conditions of the moon, where gravity’s pull is one sixth that of the Earth. Building this colony requires a 30 year plan, costing $500 to $600 billion dollars (Guterl).

Those prices alone make the Moon colony extremely costly and inefficient. Now let us say that this colony was built, and people did live there. What effect would it have on the human body, being in an environment where there is constant sunlight? Located at the Lunar North Pole, where all the water for farming is, there is constant sunlight, day in and day out. Prolonged human exposure to solar UV radiation may result in acute and chronic health effects on the skin, eye and immune system. Sunburn (erythema) is the best-known acute effect of excessive UV radiation exposure.

Over the longer term, UV radiation induces degenerative changes in cells of the skin, fibrous tissue and blood vessels leading to premature skin aging, photodermatoses and actinic keratoses. Another long-term effect is an inflammatory reaction of the eye. In the most serious cases, skin cancer and cataracts can occur (World Health Organization). These statistics were taken on Earth, where we have an atmosphere to block most of the Sun’s harmful rays. In an environment where there is no atmosphere at all, the effects would be indescribable.

After a year of exposure people would end up with 3rd degree sunburns, old wrinkly skin, and a bad case of cataracts. The conditions on the Moon are just not safe for any human. Another health factor is the effect of living in an environment where the gravity is one sixth that of the Earths. Exposure to weightlessness over month-long periods has been demonstrated to cause deterioration of physiological systems, such as loss of bone and muscle mass and a depressed immune system (Webster). Because this would obviously be a permanent residence for the people living there, they would be there much longer than a month.

On average, people lose about 30 percent of their strength between ages 50 and 70, and another 30 percent of what’s left per decade after that. Generally, people lose about 1 percent of their lean muscle mass per year after age 40. After a year on the moon a humans bones and muscle mass would deteriorate so greatly that they would have the body of a weak elderly 85 year old. In addition to those health concerns Space travel weakens the body’s immune system and alters infectious diseases, making them more potent and resistant to antibiotics (Webster). Dr.

Cheryl Nickerson, an associate professor in Tulane University’s department of microbiology and immunology, states, “It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that infectious disease could be a real show stopper in space flight, as we start sending people out on two- to three-year missions and colonizing the moon, it’s not a question of if an outbreak occurs but when. ” Basically this moon colony could end up being eerily reminiscent of the black plague. After looking at all the facts, the colonization of the moon would put America and any other country who attempts to settle there, in hundreds of billions of dollars of debt.

After it is set up, it would cost even more money to keep it up and running. The health effects from the low gravity would make permanent residency there not so permanent, because it would lead to death. When we live here on Earth, were surrounded by a wonderful, safe, UV absorbing, solar wind blocking, and sun flare reflecting atmosphere, as where the Moon doesn’t even have any sort of atmosphere to protect human beings. In reality colonizing the moon wouldn’t solve any problems on Earth, it would only cause more.