This morning I have been just staring at the countdown clock of NASA's InSight mission to Mars which is scheduled to land on Monday around 3 p.m. Eastern or noon Pacific time. Just the idea that the probe, designed to study Mars' interior up to 15 feet was about 145 million kilometers (about 90 million miles) from us this morning is exciting for me.
The landing comes a little over six years after NASA's rover Curiosity landed in August, 2012. I followed that with equally nerdy enthusiasm. In my estimation, NASA's various space missions are America's greatest civilizational achievements simply because of the sweep of their human ingenuity. A space mission tests and extracts the best of the human mind and every time it succeeds or even fails it advances the cause of human intellect.
I know it is not going to happen but news networks should consider blocking the time of InSight's landing in their broadcast to the exclusion of the oppressive banalities of the toxic earthly politics emanating from one particular individual. Even half an hour of just landing-focused broadcast on CNN would be a great service to the rest of the world. Of course, NASA has its own live feed which anyone with a decent internet connection can watch online.
I grant that I am inordinately excited about such missions but that is because they always remind me of the astonishing amount of science, technology and engineering that goes into them. All of that endeavor brings out the best of the human race.