Huygens Lands on Titan!

[dlavery]

This in not one of my missions, but the NASA Program Executive that is in charge of Cassini-Huygens sits right next to my office. Mark is over in Europe right now, with the ESA folks pouring over the images as they come in. We have been watching this closely all day, ever since my division director came in my office first thing this morning and said we had carrier signal from the spacecraft all the way down to the surface. Some of the latest photos can be seen here and on the Cassini web site. Fresh pictures from one of the moons of Saturn, showing apparent erosion channels, shorelines, ice blocks, and potential flooded plains. How cool is that?!!

Jeez, I love my job!

[sanddrag]

ice, floods? Do you mean past or present? H20 or something else?

[ChuckDickerson]

Congratulations to NASA the ESA and all involved in this milestone of science and engineering. Reports indicate that the probes batteries were designed to last only minutes after touchdown but continued to power the probe for over 2 hours. Any chance we can have THOSE batteries in the kit next year????

[Leo M]

I can think of no superlatives adequate to the task - stunning, stupendous, fabulous - all seem so small in the face of these wonderful pictures from the strangest world humanity has ever visited. The technical achievement is fantastic in itself, but the questions that come out of it - these will occupy us for years to come. Future scientists may look back on this day as the one that inspired them to pursue the road to knowledge and discovery; the day they realized that they, too, can unlock mysteries hidden for untold millenia; make discoveries equal to that of Columbus or Magellan; push back the darkness.

I can only pray that we will have those years, and that we will choose a way other than the dark and descending path to barbarism. I am only one small man. I have no special influence in the mad world of power and politics. I do not possess any remarkable skills or knowledge. I know of no sure, certain way of stopping the whirl of the insane merry-go-round of war and ignorance so that progress as embodied in the Cassini-Huygens mission can continue. My hope is that by participating in First I might add my bit of weight to the right side of the scale; nudge things just a little more towards the light.

Dave, thanks for helping to show us that light. You, and all the others.

You give me hope. We may yet endure.