I was not yet born when “one giant leap for mankind” catapulted the moon and NASA into the fervor of the American consciousness. Until last night, the biggest space-related event from NASA was the retirement of the space shuttles and the looming privatization of space. Amidst arguments that NASA is rendered largely irrelevant, at roughly 10:31PM Pacific time, the pundits are proven wrong with one word: Curiosity.
Granted, we’ve had Mars landers before. Viking in 1976; Mars Pathfinder and Sojourner in 1997; the Mars Polar Lander of 1999, which was never heard from after landing and was presumed destroyed; the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity in 2004; and the Phoenix Lander, headed for the polar regions, in 2007. Curiosity is another link in the chain, another opportunity for the exploration of a planet much like our own which we can use as the basis for scientific research and discovery.1
Why is Curiosity different from all the others? One needed only to tune into the NASA livestream of the control room last night to find the answer: the agency made one of the best decisions it could have made and let the scenes in the control room tell the tale of Curiosity and its success. From the preparations for landing to the “seven minutes of terror” to the first jubilant shout as landing was confirmed and the first pictures returned, the story of the Curiosity rover so far has not been about the rover at all; it has been about the human resolve, about the want and the drive to explore other places, other destinations, no matter how remote and inhospitable. We’re a stubborn species; we cannot settle only for what we know. We refuse to accept that this world is the only thing we can ever access.
I found myself renewed with a sense of accomplishment after the landing; going to bed, I fully expected that this would be front page news in the morning. Imagine my surprise, then, when I opened my daily news digest from the New York Times this morning and found nothing – absolutely no mention, no inkling of the accomplishments of the night before, no pithy summary of why this had to be a turning point in the funding and support for both manned and unmanned space exploration. The NY Times did, in fact, cover it – although you would be hard-pressed to find the headline2 on the front page of the site – but for whatever reason, it was not deemed worthy of inclusion in the daily briefs.
CNN issued a breaking news alert last night on landing. The Seattle Times at least nodded to it in its daily digest, albeit as a local interest story3. It wasn’t that long ago (from my perspective) when this sort of event made front page news, either above or below the fold. Have we come to consider space exploration as rote, every accomplishment only worthy of articles in the science section instead of screaming to the world “Look at what we have achieved! See what sorts of wonders we can find if we try!”?
Is the inspiration of the next generation left to the geeks and nerds that care enough to publicize and proselytize these events as a crux of human existence? Is the demotion of NASA to second-class status behind private interests really for the public good? When did we decide, as a nation, that space travel should not be something undertaken by the public for the public, that the agency principally responsible for putting a man on the moon no longer deserves the glory it once held?
For every person who has ever looked up at the stars and wondered about the meaning of life and whether we are alone in the universe, Curiosity is a great achievement, and it will stand to reveal many things that are as of yet unknown to us about the Red Planet. But it is also something of a warning – endeavors of this sort can only be undertaken provided a sufficient amount of financial and cultural support. The choice is ours: do we forge boldly forth to and beyond Mars and accept it as part of our culture and our heritage of exploration, or do we close the chapter, and allow the private interests to take all the glory, robbing the nation of a sense of shared accomplishment?
~ C. (Gaius) Charles
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_landing
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/06/science/space/curiosity-rover-lands-safely-on-mars.html
[3] http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018857293_mars06m.html
Nicely stated and on target – as was Curiosity. I went through the same experience looking for information on line in the early morning, only to be surprised by how little there was in the face of such an amazing accomplishment.