NASA's been planning to send up another robot to Mars, and it's gone to the web to look for a name. Naturally this has been ripe for silly publicity stunts, but that aside, I'm disappointed at the names NASA has now put up for voting. "Adventure?" "Perception?" "Amelia?" Unsurprisingly, these are the work of grade-schoolers--which just makes me ask, a la Professor Kirke in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, "What do they teach them in schools these days?"
Whatever happened to the vision of space travel stamped with bold, uncompromising names like Enterprise, Yorktown, Defiant, or Intrepid? Names that said "We've come in peace, but we will send you away in pieces if necessary." Ships that, sure, might be destroyed in an instant because the entire crew happened to be wearing red shirts--but you knew it meant business. Now we're sending out probes that might as well be called Please Don't Hurt Us. Come on, people--get your heads in the game. Or, name the damn thing Amelia--as long as it takes Stephen Colbert to Mars with it.
2 comments:
"We've come in peace, but we will send you away in pieces if necessary." <---- this is me shaking my head & rolling my eyes while thinking...why do boys/men always wanna blow things up?
My vote goes for Buttercup! It sounds sweet!
Well, we don't *want* to, but sometimes ya gotta do what ya gotta do.
Post a Comment