Space
Winter 2008 is probably best known for the economic issues that spread across the globe, but on the day when the magnitude of the issue started to dawn, something else happened, the Phoenix Lander detected snowfall on Mars. Unfortunately, the word of a confirmed hydrological cycle on another planet got pushed out of the news cycles rather quickly as everyone concentrated on the economy instead.
Today we have thee leadership debate and even the volcano in Eyjafjallajoekull, but we also have the following announcement by Barak Obama.
"By 2025, we expect new spacecraft designed for long journeys to allow us to begin the first ever crew missions beyond the Moon into deep space,"
"So, we'll start by sending astronauts to an asteroid for the first time in history."
"By the mid-2030s, I believe we can send humans to orbit Mars and return them safely to Earth, and a landing on Mars will follow."
I hope the plans get the publicity and the backing they deserve and aren't just left to quietly plod along in the background. Much as I thoroughly enjoy watching every shuttle launch and landing (have I mentioned I'm a geek?), it disheartens me when putting humans into space doesn't even make the news round-up. Okay, so the shuttle program is back in the news at the moment because it's about to be decommissioned but other than that it's been barely visible for years. When did space become routine? It's cutting edge science that broadens our understanding of what the universe is, how it works, the opportunities available to us as a species and yet it gets relegated to a level of importance below that over a rollerskating ferret.
Maybe I'm getting sentimental in my old age, but I hope that we do go back to the Moon, that we do go to Mars and that a massive song and dance is made of it. The Apollo program captured people's imaginations, it pushed the boundaries. Just about everyone that was alive then knows where they were when 11 landed and knows where they were during the 4 minutes it took 13 to pass through the atmospheric radio blackout zone (40 years ago this Saturday). They were watching or listening in. I hope it the same when we reach Mars and I hope at least some of the Apollo astronauts are still alive to see that. As it stands now there are only 12 people who have ever walked on another terrestrial body and only 9 of them are still alive (Pete Conrad (A12), Alan Shepard (A14) and James Irwin (A15) having all died in the 1990s). It'd be a crying shame if we lost them all before adding new names to the list.
The iconic 'Earth Rise' picture from Apollo 8 changed the very perspective of our little blue planet and I can't help but wonder what a similar shot from Mars would do (assuming orbital alignments were favourable of course), after all, the photos from Voyager as she passed Saturn are similarly awe inspiring.
Click to view"I sometimes catch myself looking up at the moon, remembering the changes of fortune in our long voyage. Thinking of the thousands of people who worked to bring the three of us home. I look up at the Moon and wonder, when will we be going back, and who will that be?" - End soliloquy, Apollo 13