Thinking too much about space creeps me out. The fact that we're (earth) just floating here, the vastness of it all, other life . . . you wonder if we'll ever know for sure. Given our life expectancy, it seems improbable. But who knows?
None the less, some amazing things have been accomplished by NASA lately. Whether you think it's a waste of money or not, these projects are amazing.
The first was Project Deep Impact. In short, a space craft was launched that traveled 267 millions miles at a speed of 64, 000 mph for 174 days with a goal to impact a comet about 2 miles wide which is also traveling about 100,000 mph. It was successful, and that's amazing. That took some heavy calculations.
The second is the Mars Phoenix project. I know this isn't the first time we've been to Mars, but it's amazing still. It takes 9 months traveling at 74,000 mph (14,000 relative to Mars) to make the trip. That's one heck of a road trip. Once it enters the atmosphere it must slow to 5 mph to land. Again, I think that amazing.
Cool stuff. The truth is better than fiction.
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