Every once in a while Shanghai Scrap needs to show its enthusiasm for continued exploration of the universe. Like today: in a few hours the first images from the MESSENGER flyby of Mercury should start streaming back to Earth, and we’ll all have our first close-up view of the innermost planet in 33 years. Me, I can’t wait.
On Sunday, MESSENGER Project Scientist Ralph McNutt, Jr., posted a brief but eloquent reflection on the importance of the flyby, and of human exploration, to the mission website. In an age when many scientists feel little need to communicate with the wider public, I was really heartened to read this mission placed in such humanistic terms:
Robotic emissaries now in orbit about Saturn, Mars, Venus, and our Moon have been enabled and are now operated by thousands of engineers, scientists, and space agency staffers from several continents and many nations. The twin Voyager spacecraft are nearing the interstellar void, and New Horizons is en route to the first views of Pluto and other Kuiper Belt objects beyond the orbit of Neptune. Everyone on this planet continues by proxy to feel the push of Robert Browning: “Ah, a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what’s a heaven for?”
The complete text can be found here.
You won’t feel so heartened when MESSENGER awakens Dread Cthulhu from his thousand year slumber on the barren surface of Mercury. Prepare yourself for his arrival! Prepare yourself now, for his kingdom shall cover the earth!
That’s what I’m talking about when I suggest that scientists need to speak in more humanistic terms to the public! Still waiting for Dread, though, so please keep me posted if he turns up in any of your detector arrays.