The Second Century of Flight Begins

THE SECOND CENTURY OF FLIGHT BEGINS

Just last month we celebrated the centennial of the first powered flight. This month flight blasts into its second century with the successful landing of the Mars rover, Spirit. Ever since President Kennedy challenged the country to land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth, space exploration has provided some of the most thrilling moments, as well as the most complex and difficult in the history of humankind. Space exploration pushes the limits of technology and by definition requires bold risk taking but then as President Kennedy said, "we choose to go to the moon and do the other things, not because they are easy but because they are hard."

President Kennedy made a brilliant calculation. He understood that America is at her greatest when we embark on great national adventures. Therefore, in the speech when he issued his challenge, he added, "It will not be one man going to the moon-if we make this judgment affirmatively, it will be an entire nation. For all of us must work to put him there." JFK understood it would be a rallying call of national pride for all Americans to achieve the goal he had set.

Those of us over 40 will never forget the grainy black and white video of the Apollo astronauts bouncing, driving in the lunar rover and teeing up golf shots on the moon. Not only were we glued to our television sets but also those pictures helped mend wounds of the American psyche. The moon landings did a great deal to bring together a fractured America, which had lost its innocence during the 1960s.

It's a long time since the Apollo moon landing glory days at NASA. This has been an especially difficult couple of years for the agency. Nearly a year ago the shuttle Columbia disintegrated as it re-entered the atmosphere, with the crew of seven scientists and explorers tragically lost. Two separate unmanned missions to Mars ended in disappointment in 1999. Both crashed into the planet's surface, burned up or were otherwise lost in space. On Christmas the Europeans discovered how difficult it is to land a probe on Mars. A team of British scientists has still been unable to make contact with their Beagle-2 craft. In fact out of 30 attempted Mars missions over the past 40 years, just 12 have had any success. Spirit is only the fourth to land successfully on the Martian surface (the two Viking craft in 1976 and Pathfinder in 1997).

When Spirit landed and the camera sent back its first stunning shots on January 2, 2004 NASA was, rightfully, jubilant. The pictures sent back by Spirit are clearer and more spectacular than any we have seen of another celestial body and are as spellbinding as those first shots of the lunar surface. Soon Spirit's real scientific work will begin and that's when the project has the opportunity to payoff in real technical dividends. The space program has a history, particularly during the heady Apollo years, of creating new technology-beyond fuzzy pictures of spacemen bouncing on the moon-that have resulted in benefits to all Americans. From the frivolous, such as "Tang" to the computer, the technology that spurred the business and economic growth of the past two decades were developed by NASA and eventually became consumer products that we take for granted today.

Spirit has a sibling twin named "Opportunity," scheduled to land on Mars this January 24th. I am hopeful it too will provide another American success story and yield the ancient secrets of Mars. A successful great national adventure, such as the Mars rover Spirit, and the pictures from Mars, can be a unifying clarion call that most Americans can agree on.