Not quite a Ford Raptor, but still kinda awesome.
As you are all no doubt aware, the Mars Curiosity rover landed successfully last night. There were a whole lot of pundits predicting that it would follow in the path of some of its predecessors and experience something that was less a “landing” than it was a “mid-space collision with a planet”. Nevertheless, the landing was successful, and NASA is now receiving some valuable footage from the surface of our planetary neighbour.
Several decades ago, we experienced a similar euphoria when NASA, using slightly less computational power than is found in your average cellphone today, successfully landed a couple of guys on the moon. After the exhilaration the planet seemed to feel last night, it’s not hard to imagine what the moon landing must have felt like for our parents’ generation. But where do we go from here? Is the natural next step to send someone all that way to leave some footprints in the Martian dust? Should we continue sending landers to explore Mars? Should we turn our sights to Venus, and look at landing some more advanced craft in the vicious atmosphere of that planet? Should we renew our moon missions, and look at setting up a permanent settlement there? The euphoria of scientific discovery should not be allowed to fade with the economic ups and downs of our generation. The resources are out there, we just have to figure out how to focus them correctly.
What should mankind put its mind to in its next space-based scientific adventure?