1.03.2004

Time to Pop That Cork!

Looks like the Mars rover Spirit is down! Nice work, all you folks who made it happen.

I have to admit I'm terribly opposed to manned missions at this point, because they're more PR and attitude and expense, while the unmanned missions have tended to offer more real scientific value for what we most need to know at this stage of the game. And I'm tired of losing Shuttle crews to avoidable mistakes.

But when you see this - this pure bit of science and adventure, this moment of great pride (and you noticed that many of the faces and voices at JPL were multi-ethnic) defines the America I thought I knew. And after 3 years of hearing up was down, war is the Christian thing to do, global warming is good for you, justice means "execute and then have a trial", and "evolution didn't get us here, the Bible did" - it was nice to see the US and the people of other nations who contributed to it do what it does so well: seek real scientific information as part of an exploratory process. The moment seemed quite crystalline, almost pure (for want of a better phrase) to me, not at all tied up with the schlock we've engaged in for years.

And we didn't have to kill a single person to do it. Imagine that!

But want to bet the president is asleep and will be told in the morning, when Condi comes in with his bowl of Froot Loops and Sunday funnies? After all, he keeps telling us he doesn't watch the news, and this isn't a ball game.