I have mixed feelings. Sure, as somebody pointed out, it's good to have the return to Space on the agenda. It's good that we're talking about going back. But I wanted a lot more than this. Hearing that we're going to go to the moon in 10+ years was something to get excited about in 1960. A permanent moonbase in 2020? A manned voyage to Mars in 2025? Yes, that all would have also been very exciting, too...in 1960.
Anyway, I was looking through the Google News lsitings on this item and found a few interesting items:
Best headline:
Bush to Martians: here we come!Lamest headline:
To boldly go ... Bush tells Nasa to build new shuttle for MarsThoughtful naysaying:
President shoots for moon, Mars LUNAR FOOTHOLD: Scientists disagree on value of U.S. return to Earth's satelliteSurly, knee-jerk naysaying:
Bush's Space Vision ThingThe all-important local angle:
Indiana likely to figure in Bush plan
But the best analysis by far and away has got to be this piece from The Telegraph:
To boringly go where they've gone before
The moment the black-and-white pictures flashed up on the screens, the celebrations began. Whoops of joy, tears of relief, high-fives: the team of Nasa scientists at mission control in Pasadena, California, were jubilant at their success.
They had sent a probe 250 million miles to Mars, landed, and were now looking at pictures beamed back from its surface. Later this week, their Mars Rover Explorer will start trundling about on the Red Planet.
Such celebrations were clearly merited for this whole slew of "firsts" - except they were nothing of the sort. Nasa has been visiting the planet since the early 1960s, and has even landed on its surface several times before.
Okay. So far so good. I don't think anyone really said it was a first, but what the heck. However, we then come to this little shocker:
The pictures splashed across the world's front pages last week were indistinguishable from those sent back by Nasa's Viking Landers more than a quarter of a century ago. Not even the plan to put a man on Mars was new: Nasa pulled that one off back in 1997.
A while back, I got really upset with a guy who tried to tell me we never went to the moon. I've learned from my mistake. I'm not angry with Robert Matthews, who writes surly editorials for The Telegraph and who believes that the US sent a man to Mars in 1997.
I'm not angry with him at all.
Posted by Phil at January 15, 2004 06:02 AM | TrackBack