(I was really inspired by our trip to the Lockheed Martin Space Experience center on Friday, so I wrote the following for my personal blog. The title of the blog is a quote from the movie John Carter, based on the books series by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Barsoom is the name that the inhabitants of the red planet call Mars.)
On its face, a layman’s description of the Mars Science Laboratory paints an unimpressive scene. A bunch of scientists in Florida shot a little car into space and it landed on Mars. Now the robot is going to climb some hills, collect some rocks, and take some pictures. The difficulty in achieving this mission, however, couldn't be more difficult.
As a non-scientist (unless you count social science, and the folks at NASA probably don’t), I’m not qualified to describe the rover Curiosity’s operation, the agency’s broader mission, or the Obama administration’s space policy. But as someone who grew up in the same state as the Wright Brothers, Neil Armstrong, and John Glenn, I understand the significance of this landing. Scientists and engineers succeeded in not just increasing the size of the rover (from a go-cart to a mini Cooper) while maintaining functional control, but they were able to utilize ever-shrinking technology to pack numerous cameras and sensors onto Curiosity. Designed for a 2 year mission, NASA is hoping to get a decade of science out of the robot. The measurements and discoveries that Curiosity will send back to Earth will not only expand our knowledge of Mars, but will greatly expand how we understand chemistry and biology in our own neighborhood.
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On Friday, I visited the Lockheed Martin Space Experience Center in Crystal City. An alum of my school, The Ohio State University, gave my class an exhilarating overview of the company’s contribution to space exploration, air defense, cyber security, and various other space-related ventures. I was hesitant to visit a defense contractor, as any good liberal is wont to be, and I admitted as much to the guide.
But as I told him after his hour and a half presentation and tour, my apprehensions were dropped within the first two minutes. The center is an impressive testament to the history of human achievement and I found myself dreaming about what my own generation would create and explore in the future. The possibilities seem endless. In addition to the displays of Cold War rockets, the most up-to-date GPS satellites, and ongoing projects to counter malevolent nuclear launches with high-tech spears, the center featured exhibits showing off amazing new technologies, such as a substance that could literally catch flying satellites like a baseball mitt, despite being comprised of 99.8% air.
Descriptions of how scientists and engineers are working to prevent blackouts caused by solar storms, paired with high-definition footage of these fiery tempests erupting on the surface of the sun, ignited in my that passion for exploration that I hadn’t felt since I was a young boy in elementary school science class. I had taken several science classes since then, and found most of them engaging and enjoyable. But something about the Space Center took me back to how I felt when I first realized how little I truly knew about the universe in which I live.
A few years ago, I read Neil De Grasse Tyson’s Death by Black Hole, and I have been a rabid consumer of popular science ever since. Early last week, I had listened to Carl Sagan’s abridged audio book Pale Blue Dot, and watched several videos featuring Tyson, Michio Kaku, and Isaac Asimov talking about the potential of human understanding and the romanticism of space exploration. This week, I’m going to supplement my last few days in the nation’s capital by watching Nova Science Now and listening to German space-themed power metallers Iron Savior. And the whole time, I’m going to be thinking about what comes next for our species.
Perhaps my excitement about the Curiosity rover was also primed by how I spent my free time in D.C. this summer. Over the course of my eight weeks here, I read the first five books in Edgar Rice Burrough’s Barsoom series, a classic science-fiction world that follows a Virginian’s adventures on the Red Planet. In fact, I had finished the fifth novel The Chessmen of Mars on the yellow line to Crystal City.
I don’t expect Curiosity to find any savage four-armed green men roaming the dried sea beds of Mars, thickly covered in ochre sward, but the prospect of finding evidence for life-sustaining conditions in the past seems just as surreal.
Despite all of my excitement, I’m not stumbling over myself to give Lockheed Martin or Boeing carte blanche to build whatever it thinks NASA needs to achieve its mission. Once I’ve done a bit more reading and watching, I may feel compelled to write a critique of our nation’s space policy, about how the retirement of our space shuttle program was premature and how our leaders have failed to inspire young people to chase the stars.
But until then, I’m ready to speak out and offer my support, in whatever way I can, to the brave men and women at NASA and our military that are boldly going where no one has gone before.
Cameron DeHart
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