Mars Watch [assorted quotes/commentary]

The Oregonian ^ | 01/07/04 | various news outlets

[Ex-Dem]

Excerpted from news services:

"To grasp the magnitude of what American scientists achieved this past weekend with the successful landing of the robot rover Spirit on Mars, you can't do much better than a TV reporter we heard on Sunday, who likened it to thwacking a golf ball in Los Angeles and having it land on precisely the green you were aiming for -- in New York City. Think about it: Scientists launched the tiny Spirit seven months ago, guided it almost 50 million miles across our solar system, slowed it from 12,000 miles per hour -- that's more than five times faster than a rifle bullet -- to a safe zero and then got the little robot to send back snapshots of the red planet. America did this!"

-- editorial, Dallas Morning News

" In a larger historical view, the Mars landing is more than a government agency sending out a machine to answer some questions. It is about humanity getting ready to go there."

-- editorial, The Seattle Times

"Should we head back to the moon, explore nearby asteroids or undertake years-long voyages to Mars? My experience tells me that where we go is less important than clearly explaining why we are going. Our next challenge in space must once again engage Americans and reinforce their hopes for a brighter future."

-- Thomas D. Jones, former shuttle astronaut, The Baltimore Sun

"An imaginary interview: You're a member of an Islamist terrorist organization, right? . . . We here in the corrupt and decadent West recently read of an interesting twist in suicide bombing. One report said that a female suicide bomber planned to board a plane with explosives secreted in her nether zones, so she could escape detection and kill everyone on the plane. This story ran right alongside news of the successful landing on Mars of the Spirit probe -- an interesting contrast, really. A question: Do you want to go down in history as a culture of death-besotted killers who came up with the concept of the lethal Birth Canal of Death, or the culture that put another robot on another planet?"

-- James Lileks, Newhouse News Service

"President Bush's recent announcement that he wants to return to the moon didn't come in a vacuum. It was likely a message aimed at China's ambitious space program and designed to put the Chinese on notice that we would not cede the moon to them. (For official purposes, no country can claim a celestial object as its own, but that will change over time.) And if, for example, the Chinese took aim at Mars, no doubt NASA's peaceful scientific pursuits would rapidly be transformed."

-- Laurence Bergreen, author, Los Angeles Times

"Hats off to NASA for breaking the jinx that has doomed so many space missions to Mars."

-- editorial, The New York Times

"NASA scientists played The Beatles' 'Good Morning, Good Morning' for the start of Spirit's first day on Mars, and they talk about the rover's maneuverings as if they were up there with it. Through the advances in computer and space science, they are -- and, happily, so are we all."

-- editorial, The Boston Globe

"The hits and misses of space travel, either manned or unmanned, are often discouraging, but the latest images from Mars and the other recent discoveries are exciting reminders of why the human race can, and must, keep exploring outer space, even if the first simple goal is to find water."

-- editorial, The Christian Science Monitor

[Ex-Dem]

My personal favorite:

"An imaginary interview: You're a member of an Islamist terrorist organization, right? . . . We here in the corrupt and decadent West recently read of an interesting twist in suicide bombing. One report said that a female suicide bomber planned to board a plane with explosives secreted in her nether zones, so she could escape detection and kill everyone on the plane. This story ran right alongside news of the successful landing on Mars of the Spirit probe -- an interesting contrast, really. A question: Do you want to go down in history as a culture of death-besotted killers who came up with the concept of the lethal Birth Canal of Death, or the culture that put another robot on another planet?"

-- James Lileks, Newhouse News Service

[Steely Tom]

The most amazing thing to me about the Mars photos is this: they make Mars look like... real estate.

(steely)

[CaptRon]

A question: Do you want to go down in history as a culture of death-besotted killers who came up with the concept of the lethal Birth Canal of Death, or the culture that put another robot on another planet?"

Far, far too many would proudly answer the former.

[longtermmemmory]

Is it possible to have a daily rover thread?

[lepton]

likened it to thwacking a golf ball in Los Angeles and having it land on precisely the green you were aiming for -- in New York City.

Only if golf balls are steered, or the probe was fired from a gun.