So far, the reality of the achievement of our Mars landing by ‘Curiosity’ has yet to sink in. The photos are a little fuzzy and there’s just a little human curiosity about what will be found apart from a few uber-geeks (I may or may not relate to that)
But wait. It’s not so much about the destination but the journey. What have we learned to do on the journey to be able to make this landing possible?
Curiosity was designed and tested using Siemens software as an example – one can only imagine what they’ve learned from the experience and what the next generation of Siemens products will look like based on this amazing achievement.
And then there’s the possibility that they will find something alive out there. Yes okay it might be a microbe (and not an entire generation of 2 metre tall, green Martians ready to take over the world a la War of the Worlds), it will still be very, very exciting. It will mean, even if its just a microbe, that we are not alone. There is something else out there that didn’t come from our planet and was created in a way we know nothing about.
And what will that do to us to learn that.
I like this type of space exploration as it makes me think that we are investing in our universal knowledge. I am less happy about the space exploration that involves mining asteroids – why do we want to blow stuff up all the time?! You cant learn much from stuff you keep exploding!
Anyway, I digress. I’m ready to buy my ticket on the first inter-planetary (Virgin Galactic?) passenger craft. Let’s keep peacefully exploring and learning and finding ways to make our life on this planet a bit better by the discoveries we make along the way. I love it that Pres. Barak Obama made a call to Mars. It’s all so Star Trek New Generation! Go NASA. Go Curiosity. You little beauty.
Pamela Sutton-Legaud CFRE MBA 