And while I'm griping, can I just also point out that we humans haven't set foot on a heavenly body other than Earth since Apollo 17, in December of 1972. That's a damn long time. I was thinking about this quote we saw on the wall of the special NASA exhibit in San Diego in December.
Yeah, I know private enterprise is supposed to be stepping in, but guess what - just today it was announced that SpaceX's unmanned launch to the ISS has been delayed again. The launch was supposed to be on Feb. 7, but that date slipped a few weeks back, and now it's being pushed out even further. To late April, at the earliest.
No one ever said it would be easy, I suppose ... It just feels like so many giant steps backward for mankind sometimes.
MARS MINDED: In happier news, I spent a good part of the day thinking and reading about the Mars Science Laboratory, currently zooming toward Mars.
I've been invited to give a talk to a couple of kindergarten classes. This Tuesday I'll be giving a half hour presentation about Mars and the Mars Science Laboratory/Curiosity project. I'm happy to have the opportunity to do so, but egad - it is not coming together quickly and it's totally my fault.
I have props to bring in, but I'm also putting together a fun PowerPoint presentation with relevant and (hopefully) captivating still shots, lots of audience interaction, a cool video of the launch, and an artist's animation of the landing.
The hard part of this task is I keep finding more, More, MORE interesting stuff and I wind up reading, watching ... and getting further away from being done. Not good. But look, isn't this a gem?! How am I supposed to ignore stuff like this?
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