An outstanding example of American exceptionalism

I have just finished my yearly history course with my high school students. We never get any farther than Watergate and the Nixon resignation, but something interesting happened this year.

As we begin the Nixon Adminstration, I have a picture of Buzz Aldrin standing on the moon with with the American flag. The kids yawn, and I move on. I tell them that we haven't been there since 1972 and we will be going back in the next several years.

This year, one of the kids said "Why". It reminded me of what a jaded generation this is. I always considered the exciting people in history to be the ones who took chances, who had dreams, and who lived with a passion and ambition for enlarging our knowledge of the world...not just providing gov't checks or expounding on diversity and tolerance...someone has to push the edge of the envelope.

Tonight, we were reminded that one reason the American soul is so attractive to other peoples of other nations is exemplified by what NASA and JPL achieved tonight with the successful landing of the Phoenix Mars Polar lander. I am listening to Mike Griffin, NASA Administrator telling us regular humans what was achieved with this difficult mission. In order to successfully land at such an extreme angle onto the Martian North Pole, they had to send a vehicle 650 million kilometers over 10 months and have it enter the Martian atmosphere at an exactness of within a 20 meter window in order to not skip off the surface or crash land on the surface. Amazing.

Also, we are seeing initial pictures just to let us see that the craft is ok and operating. This from an agency that landed two roving craft on the surface in 2004. Those two craft, Spirit and Opportunity, had a design lifespan of 6 mos. They are both still operating some 4 years later, the only serious threat to their existence being a cutoff of their funding from Congress so that we can keep farm subsidies or study the sex of the fruit fly or some other stupid congressional earmark.

It reminds you of the dynamism of this country. It's people continually pushes forward, stays on the cutting edge, and welcomes the contributions of it's friends. Canada has designed a $37 million weather station that should give us great forecasting information. Hopefully, it will still be operating for that day when man finally sets foot there...if the nation keeps it's focus on the road ahead, not just the white stripes next to the wheels.

It's a good day to be a proud American. Let's all contemplate and thank those who made the supreme sacrifice this Memorial Day. I am of course referring to those men and women who served so that our brilliant scientists and workers can have the vision and freedom to conceive of and execute such an exciting mission. Phoenix is going to examine the frosted environment on Mars' North Pole...looking for past evidence of the building blocks of life on the Red Planet.

As Yakov Smirnov used to say, "What a country!"

Coach