NASA – Completing the Mission After 21 Years
With 2 launches in 1 week, NASA’s certainly been keeping busy. STS-118 also marks a special event. Barbara Morgan, the backup for Christa McAuliffe’s Teacher in Space mission rode aboard Endeavor to the ISS where she will fulfill the mission she signed on for 21 years ago. Ed Campion’s essay, linked above, gives a insider’s perspective on these events.
In about 7 hours, NASA will (hopefully) be launching the Phoenix mission to Mars. I was so excited about this mission that I was hoping to get up early to watch the launch. Unfortunately, the weather here isn’t cooperating. Many things about the Phoenix mission remind me of the Viking mission, which is at least partially why I’m so interested in it.
When I was very little, my parents started a subscription to National Geographic. One of my favorite issues was the one with a cover story on the Viking mission. I was captivated by the idea that perhaps there could be life on mars. The pictures the probe sent back were amazing. I think I must have read that issue a hundred times if only to stare at the pictures and wonder if life truly existed on another planet in our own solar system.
In many ways, the Phoenix lander is a modern reinvention of the Viking mission. Hopefully what we’ve learned from Viking and the spacecraft that followed will give Phoenix a better chance at successfully completing its mission. If we’re lucky, it will reveal more interesting facts about the history of Mars, perhaps even evidence of life.
Phoenix had a perfect launch at 5:36a EST. Congratulations to everyone on the project team!
“The Statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforseeable and uncontrollable events.”
I’ve been playing the game Call of Duty 3 on a Playstation 3 recently. It’s a really enjoyable first person shooter, that seems to take much of its style from the Band of Brothers miniseries. One interesting feature is that every time you die, a quote about war is displayed from various important historical figures. As I was playing through the last bit of the game last night, I saw one that seemed particularly relevant today. It was a quote from Winston Churchill, written in his 1930 “My Early Life” describing the prelude to the Boer War. The quote above is what was shown in the game. This is the full quote in context:
“Let us learn our lessons. Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The Statesman who yields to war fever must realise that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforseeable and uncontrollable events. Antiquated War Offices, weak, incompetent or arrogant commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant Fortune, ugly surprises, awful miscalculations – all take their seat at the Council Board on the morrow of a declaration of war. Always remember, however sure you are that you can easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think that he also had a chance”
I can’t help but think about the current Iraq war when I read these lines. It is truly a shame that our leaders, not just Bush and Cheney, but the whole of Congress as well, didn’t pay more attention to history.