Given the national jubilation that attended NASA landing a robotic spacecraft on Mars yesterday, you’d think it was as novel as man landing on the moon … for the first time. Yet the most daring part of this mission was avoiding not just landing on paths its spacecrafts already blazed on eight (8) previous missions, but also crashing into spacecrafts from the UAE and China that landed there just last week, respectively.
The NASA Perseverance rover safely landed on Mars after its 292.5 million-mile journey from Earth, the agency confirmed at 3:55 p.m. ET Thursday. The rover landed itself flawlessly, according to the mission’s team.
‘Percy,’ as the spacecraft is affectionately called at mission control, sent back its first images of the landing site immediately after touchdown, which shows the rover’s shadow on the surface of its landing site of Jezero Crater. …
The rover will explore Jezero Crater, the site of an ancient lake that existed 3.9 billion years ago, and search for microfossils in the rocks and soil there. Follow-up missions will return samples of this site collected by Perseverance to Earth by the 2030s.
(CNN, February 18, 2021)
Indeed, the NASA scientists who celebrated landing this spacecraft, like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers celebrating winning the Super Bowl, insist this mission is different. Reportedly, because their $2.7 billion robotic explorer is equipped with such high-tech cameras, instruments, and gadgets, this mission will be tantamount to suddenly being able to use a chainsaw to cut through wood after laboring to do so with a hand saw.
The problem, however, is that they’re still cutting through the same wood. Granted, Perseverance might send high-resolution images of things other rovers have taken. And it might even provide evidence that some form of life existed on Mars thousands of years ago. So friggin’ what!
Frankly, at this point, the hosannas to NASA’s exploration of Mars reeks of the hosannas to Trump’s subjugation of the Republican Party. Because only a willing suspension of disbelief explains spending billions to explore the prospect of humans living on Mars when it’s clear that no form of life has existed there for thousands of years. Not to mention juxtaposing that spending with humans standing in bread lines and even freezing to death in the richest country on Earth.
If only Morley Safer of 60 Minutes were still here to ridicule the manifest absurdity of NASA scientists waxing scientific about the pictures of dirt this Mars rover beams back to Earth; you know, the way he used to ridicule art experts waxing artistic about the monochrome paintings of contemporary artists.
But who knows, perhaps dinosaurs once roamed that planet too. Whatever the case, we should probably be humble enough to let Mars evolve on its own the way Mars let us.
In any event, you might say I am as convinced that scientists will find signs of life on other planets as I am that only born-again Christians will go to Heaven, and everyone else will burn in Hell. (Here’s looking at you Ronald Reagan…Jr.)
Therefore, I see no point in commenting on this latest mission to Mars beyond reprising – in its entirety – “Mars Beware, Mankind Is Plotting to Do to You What It Has Done to Earth,” July 20, 2019. This, especially as it previewed this very mission.
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Fifty years ago, human beings stepped on the moon for the first time. Some 650 million people around the world watched the historic landing on July 20, 1969, and heard astronaut Neil Armstrong say ‘… one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.’
Fittingly, there’s a Google Doodle celebrating the anniversary this weekend. Even cooler: An image of the Saturn V rocket that propelled the astronauts to the moon is being projected onto the Washington Monument at night, culminating in a video projection on Friday and Saturday.
(Vox, July 19, 2019)
But all of that is like harboring nostalgia for the Wright brothers’ first flight. The moon was just a stepping stone. Therefore, going back there seems like child’s play.
Indeed, the next giant leap mankind is planning to take will make that first one look like a baby’s first step.
The Mars 2020 rover mission is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program, a long-term effort of robotic exploration of the Red Planet. The Mars 2020 mission addresses high-priority science goals for Mars exploration, including key questions about the potential for life on Mars. The mission takes the next step by not only seeking signs of habitable conditions on Mars in the ancient past, but also searching for signs of past microbial life itself.
(NASA.gov)
I fully appreciate that mankind will never cease from exploring for signs of life in the universe. But, far from any other being, we already have convincing clues that there are just galaxies of nothingness out there — as I proffered in “Why All the Hoopla about Pluto When Mars Proved Such a Cosmic Dud,” July 18, 2015.
Therefore, count me among the skeptics who are convinced that
… the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
— T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets
Put another way, I’d be more impressed if mankind cleaned up the mess we’ve made of our own planet before exploring for other planets to mess up too.
Besides, as my cousin Gilbert Morris might wax poetic, there are so many secrets hidden in the familiar here on Earth, we could spend a thousand years exploring and still not discover all its wonders.
In the meantime, if there are other living creatures in the universe, they are probably better suited to discover us. And God help us if they do.
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Mars beware…