In the summer 2003, NASA launched two dune buggies aimed towards Mars. They both landed successfully in January 2004, and began tooling around on their scheduled 3 month missions. They are still there 7 years later. Spirit stopped communicating in March 2010, but NASA has not given up hope; Opportunity is still moving around, taking photos, analyzing samples, sending back data. Meanwhile, in 2005, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter was launched towards Mars as well, and now continues to circle the planet, sending back data and taking photos, including a recent one showing Opportunity at the edge of a crater it is studying.
In elementary school in the 60's, we brought in TV's and watched every single manned launch. Now, these amazing feats of technology are taken for granted. But sometimes we need to be reminded of the amazing things we can accomplish - and we need to look at pictures of the surface of Mars, and exercise our sense of wonder.
No comments:
Post a Comment