Terraforming Mars for Human Habitation (Research Paper Example)

The idea of Mars being terraformed to support life has been toyed with by scientists for a while now. As a result, people have opinions that they wish to share with others about this topic. For instance, William J. Broad and Paul Scott Anderson both express their strong feelings in their articles “Can Mars Be Made Hospitable to Humans?” and “Should We Terraform Mars?”, while using persuasive techniques to strengthen their opinions. In “Can Mars Be Made Hospitable to Humans?” Broad uses the appeal to authority technique to show readers his opinion. In Anderson’s “Should We Terraform Mars?”, he uses the appeal to reasoning strategy to persuade people to join his side. Both authors; however, use a variety of sentences to express their feelings to the readers.

For example, appeal to authority was very popular in Broad’s article, “Can Mars Be Made Hospitable to Humans?” Appeal to authority is the strategy that uses the words experts in a certain field to prove a point. In Broad’s article, he explains that “...scientists argue that a spare planet might be handy if this one gets worn out or damaged” (1). Broad is using the scientists as a way to persuade the readers since the scientists know much more about this topic than the readers. This persuasive technique shows the use of other peoples’ words to push your own opinion convincingly. Another instance of this is when Broad discusses, “Primitive plants could be introduced and probably survive if the work of atmosphere creation was successful, the scientists wrote '' (3).  He explains that scientists can introduce life on Mars, meaning that it can also support human life. Again, since the people with authority are explaining this, readers would be more likely to believe that humans can terraform Mars.

On the contrary, Anderson uses appeal to reasoning as a major technique to persuade the readers in his article, “Should We Terraform Mars?” Appeal to reasoning is when an author uses facts and reason to express why they feel or view anything in a certain way. An example of this is when Paul Anderson explains, “...if a lander or rover was to later identify living organisms in the soil, it might be difficult to determine whether they were just contamination or true native life forms” (6). Anderson was using reasoning to prove to the reader that there are many risks in terraforming Mars. Another example of this is when Anderson wrote, “There has been a long-standing protocol, via the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, to have all spacecraft going to the Moon or Mars sterilized as much as possible” (6). Afterward, he explains the trouble that could rumble if bacteria were able to survive on Mars. 

However, both William Broad and Paul Anderson use sentence variety to furthermore push their point onto the reader. Long sentences can feel emotionless and boring, while short sentences can feel simple and cheap. By having a variety of both, readers are more likely to stay interested in what they are reading. In “Can Mars Be Made Hospitable to Humans?”William Broad, the author explains, “In the 1970’s, NASA sent two robot landing craft, known as Vikings, to Mars to examine its surface for signs of life. They found none” (3). In this case, the final sentence adds a dramatic tone to the paragraph since it is followed by a fact. Anderson discusses in “Should We Terraform Mars?” that, “From both a scientific and ethical perspective, it would seem prudent to try to protect Mars as much as we can from earthly intruders. This applies equally whether Mars is already inhabited or not.” Although the sentences do not have drastically different lengths, the technique of sentence variety is still used. It shows the seriousness of the topic and the last sentence shows how the author feels about terraforming Mars.

In conclusion, William J. Broad and Paul Scott Anderson had different methods for persuading their readers. William Broad used appeal to authority in his article, “Can Mars Be Made Hospitable to Humans?” Paul Anderson used the appeal to reasoning method in his article, “Should We Terraform Mars?” Both authors made their opinions convincing to the readers by using the sentence variety strategy in their writings.  The authors used many techniques in their work to make themselves more convincing to get readers to be on their side.