Dear JPL, you wild, risky souls, you: You have given us unworthy earthlings, and Angelenos in particular, a window to the universe. The sheer gall it takes to fling a 6-ton observatory the size of a school bus 934 million miles into space for a four-year journey to the solar system's most come-hither planet, and then nudge it through rings of space debris thousands of miles across with just a kiss of retro-rocket fire - god, it's staggering ...
I just wanted to say thank you for throwing all those cosmic Hail Mary passes. Thank you for trusting in slide rules and telescopes and rocketry and the holy mysteries of orbit and light. Thanks for putting science and L.A.-bred talent and sweat to work on putting the rest of our vain, scurrying little endeavors in perspective.
Thanks for driving those little robots all over about a square mile of Mars and giving cutesy names to the rocks and authorizing a Hot Wheels version so we could all get a slice of your sizzlingmojo technology.
You're making us proud to have you as neighbors, proud that you're putting L.A.'s best scientific minds to work on something that could have huge implications for the human race - but at the very least are awe-inspiring and cool.
We can't wait to see the color shots.
And on that note, I'm taking a holiday break. The redesign of the site pretty much burned my little cortex to a crisp, so I'm off to stick my feet in the Merced River in honor of Independence Day.
If you submit news in the next few days, I promise I'm not ignoring you - I'll handle it when I get back on Sunday or Monday.
Posted by: mack_reed on Friday, July 02, 2004 - 12:46 AM
