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Mars robots, space program rock
We had misgivings about the cost of the current
Mars mission and the purpose of the space program in general
before last week. Spending billions of dollars on cool space
robots and Martian soil samples didn't seem like a prudent use
of federal funds, and maybe it isn't.
But on Jan. 15, when a robot named Spirit
wheeled off its landing platform and onto the surface of Mars
to begin a mission of exploration and discovery, we realized
that the space robots NASA had made were cooler than we could
have ever imagined. When we saw the first images of the alien
frontier, red and empty and unknown, it finally struck us that
the space program is totally awesome.
Let's face it: Anyone who saw those pictures
thought that they were awesome and that sending robots to other
planets is a pretty cool way to spend less than 1 percent of
the federal budget. Any day now another Martian probe, Opportunity,
is expected to land on Mars and begin its interplanetary mission.
We wish our droid explorers and their handlers at NASA the best
of luck in this worthy cause.
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