Noteworthy News
Saturday night, roaming through the channels on the television, I found something - a good news thing - which the like hasn’t been shown in a long time. It wasn’t on Fox News, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, or Public TV. It was on CNN, of all places.
Saturday night, at roughly 10:37 in the evening, the Spirit Mars rover landed (bounced) on the red planet named after the Roman god of war. CNN had the entire event live, straight from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
There was true tension in the control room as the rover made its dangerous descent through the light martian atmosphere. The scientists who worked nearly two years on the Spirit rover were worried it would suffer the same fate of a European probe that was still unheard from.
Luckily, the Spirit rover landing was textbook-perfect. Good news for a change. I’m glad CNN pre-empted everything for this. They also had real, actual scientists to help them with the commentary. This is the true American spirit; our sense of curiosity, the need for exploration, tackling every new frontier.
Next week, it has been said that President Bush will outline our space policies for the next 10 to 20 years. They are said to include manned travel back to the Moon, first time manned travel to Mars, and lunar colonization. I have to say it’s about time a president remembered out NASA. Yeah, there are political reasons for this I’m sure. But at least it’s being done. We as a nation, and as a race, need new frontiers. We need something new to be proud of. We need to go boldly where no one has gone before (you know I couldn’t leave that out)!
I’ll see you on the dark side of the Moon!
Erik out.