Sojourner becomes newest America's hero
By Hillary Rodham Clinton
It seems somehow fitting that when the first miraculous pictures came in from Mars, Bill and I were in Spain with King Juan Carlos and his wife, Queen Sofia. Spain's history of exploration -- with Columbus, Magellan and Ponce de Leon -- opened new frontiers and changed the way people thought about the world.
So, in a few short days, did the Mars Pathfinder.
There was an almost universal reaction to the photographs. First came awe. Pure, unadulterated awe. This is Mars!
Then came something else: the strange feeling that grows out of the realization that the landscape of a planet millions of miles away is utterly recognizable.
The rocks looked like they could be from the Southwest. (It would be hard to call them "barnacle Bill" and "Yogi" If there weren't something familiar about them.) So did the colors -- the reds, browns and oranges. There was an open sky. And then, there were the mountains in the distance, the "Twin Peaks." They made me wonder fancifully what might be on the other side.
The pictures were incredible. But so, too, were the talent and ingenuity that brought them to us. Just think what NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory achieved. Five years ago, they conceived of this mission. Seven months ago, they launched it. Then, they had Pathfinder travel 300 million miles and land on Mars, in the very area they had targeted, on a planet twice the size of our moon, and on the precise day they had scheduled for touchdown: the Fourth of July.
Moreover, a few glitches notwithstanding, everything worked -- air bags, batteries, communications equipment, cameras.
This triumph is all the more remarkable because NASA conducted the mission on a tight budget. There is no better example of this than America's newest hero: Sojourner, the plucky Mars rover that is about the size of one of those little remote controlled cars you inevitably trip over when you walk through a Toys "R" Us. To keep down expenses, the rover's designers built it primarily from off-the-shelf parts rather than developing new ones. To conserve energy, the rover goes no faster than it needs to. In fact, on its first day, it traveled only 16 inches. That small distance, however, is going to propel science miles ahead.
It is also a triumph that Sojourner was the dream of a woman -- Donna Shirley, head of Mars exploration at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Shirley's vision should inspire everyone interested in science. But I hope it will have particular resonance for girls, who traditionally have participated less in science than boys. With role models like Shirley and astronaut Shannon Lucid -- and with committed schools -- we'll succeed in teaching girls that they truly belong on the final frontier.
Pathfinder is just one of many ground-breaking NASA projects, and it makes me proud of my husband's commitment to a strong space program. He has worked to keep the shuttle flying, to build the international space station, to develop the X-33, which will replace the shuttle, to continue robotic exploration of the solar system, and to cement the alliance we have formed with Russia in space.
Our work with Russia alone has yielded enormous returns -- not just in terms of science but also in terms of global understanding. Since a cargo vessel crashed into the space station Mir two weeks ago, knocking out much of its power, that truth has been more apparent than ever. In the face of this great challenge, Americans and Russians, in space and on the ground, worked together heroically. Two cosmonauts and one astronaut were on board. We prayed for each of them when they were in danger, and we celebrated for each of them when an emergency cargo vessel docked perfectly with Mir earlier this week. All of a sudden, our differences seemed insignificant.
Sometimes, it takes going to space to show us we all share a common home. That was true in 1962, when the first pictures of Earth came back from space. It was true on that July day in 1969, when the world watched Neil Armstrong step onto the moon. And it was true this week, when people around the globe were transfixed by the photos coming back from Mars.
Last summer, Americans delighted in the movie Independence Day. In the film, the people of Earth united despite their differences to fight a common enemy. This Independence Day, we started to watch an equally amazing story, one that is bringing us together around a common success. Only this one, happily, isn't fiction.
-- Creators Syndicate