Synthesis & Argument unit test

Sources as support, not structure

Sophistication in practice

Attribution conventions on the exam

Using a source against itself

What the synthesis question is testing

Avoiding device-listing

Time per essay

Personal experience as evidence

Rhetorical analysis essay

Synthesis essay

Argument essay

AP Lang essay rubric

SYNTHESIS ESSAY (Question 1, 6 points). As nations and space agencies have sent spacecraft and satellites into space, human-created debris — "space junk" — has accumulated in orbit. Space debris ranges from paint flecks to whole defunct satellites, and all of it poses a collision risk. Many countries agree that managing space debris is a priority, but removing it is difficult and costly. Write an essay that synthesizes material from at least three of the six sources and develops your position on the most important factors that space agencies and nations should consider when dealing with the problem of space debris. The six sources, summarized: Source A (O'Callaghan article) — Jonathan O'Callaghan, "What Is Space Junk and Why Is It a Problem?", Natural History Museum (London) website. Explains that space junk is any human-made machinery or debris left in space: about 2,000 active satellites share orbit with 3,000 dead ones, some 34,000 pieces larger than 10 cm, and millions of smaller fragments. Low-orbit debris reenters and burns up within years, but objects at geostationary altitude can circle Earth for centuries. Collisions and anti-satellite missile tests (by the US, China, and India) create thousands of new fragments. The main present danger is to satellites, which perform hundreds of collision-avoidance maneuvers a year (the ISS included); destructive collisions remain rare. Source B (graph from ESA) — "ESA's Space Environment Report 2021," European Space Agency. A stacked bar graph of satellites launched into low-Earth orbit each year, 2000–2020, classified by funding source (commercial, defense, civil, amateur). Annual launches hover around 40–80 objects through 2012, rise past 150–180 in 2013–2016, then explode — roughly 400 in 2017, 370 in 2018, 420 in 2019, and nearly 1,300 in 2020 — with commercial launches (private business funding) accounting for almost all of the recent growth. Source C (Quell article) — Molly Quell, "Lack of Space Law Complicates Growing Debris Problem," Courthouse News Service, Aug. 2020. Reviews the thin legal regime: five UN treaties cover space, led by the 1967 Outer Space Treaty (104 signatories), but later agreements have fewer than half the world's countries. Nations are not required to remove their objects, and voluntary removal is enormously expensive; more than half of the ~9,000 satellites launched since Sputnik remain in orbit, mostly as junk. The article recounts Kosmos 954, the Soviet nuclear satellite that scattered radioactive debris over Canada in 1977 (Canada was ultimately paid 3 million Canadian dollars), explains the Kessler Effect — cascading collisions that could make space inaccessible — and notes ESA's Clean Space Initiative and a planned robotic debris-removal mission; an ESA official calls debris "a solvable problem" if countries act together. Source D (Rossettini opinion article) — Luca Rossettini, "Space Debris: Prevention, Remediation or Mitigation?", SpaceNews, 2015; the author leads a start-up addressing space debris. Argues that active debris removal (ADR) faces political and legal obstacles (one nation cannot legally remove another's defunct satellite without permission), unsolved technical problems, and taxpayer cost — and even removing the recommended ~10 large objects a year cannot keep pace with 100+ annual launches. Mitigation (venting tanks and discharging batteries so dead craft don't explode) is now standard but insufficient. He concludes that prevention must come first: every new satellite should carry end-of-life disposal devices (tethers, balloons, solar sails), with removal and eventually recycling to follow. Source E (NOAA article) — "Does Space Junk Fall from the Sky?", NOAA National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, 2018. Even undetectably small debris travels faster than a bullet and can punch through spacecraft shielding. Recounts how the Suomi NPP weather satellite maneuvered in September 2014 to dodge an object predicted to miss by just 300 feet — an impact at a combined 35,000 mph would have destroyed the satellite and created thousands of new fragments. Describes safe-disposal practice: the "25-year rule" for lowering retired satellites to reenter and burn up, or steering them into the remote Pacific near Point Nemo. Source F (chart from Mosher and Kiersz) — "These Are the Countries on Earth with the Most Junk in Space," Business Insider, 2017. A bar chart of items in orbit (active satellites, rocket bodies, debris) by owner: Russia/former USSR 6,515; United States 6,211; China 3,839; France 547; Japan 266; India 202; ESA 134; smaller totals for international and private operators. Debris dwarfs active satellites for every major space power. In your response you should: present a defensible thesis; use evidence from at least three sources (cited as Source A–F or by description); explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning; and use appropriate grammar and punctuation.