How Curiosity brought us together
Whether you're a disaffected youth or just a curmudgeonly old dude, you have to admit -- the Curiosity landing was pretty awesome.
Miriam Kramer • August 31, 2012
The Curiosity landing was made for me. And actually (if you’re reading this) I bet it was made for you too.
Like many people, about a month ago I watched with bated breath as the rover was lowered onto the surface of Mars in the wee hours of the morning. I fell slightly in love with Bobak the “Mohawk Guy” and desperately wanted to know where I could buy one of those snazzy blue shirts all the mission control operators were wearing. I laughed at the silly things Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted at the hipster-ish sounding Curiosity Rover handle.
But something struck me as odd about the way people (especially 20-somethings) reacted to the landing. A generation known for being particularly ironic and insincere when faced with anything serious was genuinely enthralled by this huge advancement in planetary sciences. A gaggle of young adults even braved a thunderstorm to watch a live-feed of the landing in Times Square. Science, NASA and peanuts brought us together for one, fleeting moment.
Honestly, it shocked me. We, on the whole, are known for our disaffected, cynical attitudes. It’s actually a point of pride for us. We 20-somethings are smart. We know the ways of the world, and that world is a place unfit for positivity and optimism. Excitement? Who needs it? We have our fatalistic, realistic perspective on life to keep us warm at night.
But this landing, this “great leap forward” for NASA, was also a “great leap” for our generation. We figured out how to use social media for good, to express our excitement for something amazing and cool without coating it in a nice layer of self-protective irony.
It really was our moon landing.
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About the Author
Miriam Kramer
Miriam graduated with her degree in journalism and anthropology from the University of Tennessee. Although she fully intended on majoring in English when first entering college, Miriam instead fell in love with the sciences. Not willing to give up writing, she combined her two passions and fell head first into science writing. You can follow her on Twitter!
1 Comment
The Irony of Curiosity
Did that rocket powered trip to Mars involve Newtonian Physics? Isn’t that 300 years old?
But in TEN YEARS our “scientists” can’t clearly resolve in detail the supposed collapse of skyscrapers. The Galileo Affair lasted 23 years, will the 9/11 Affair take as long?