The Terrestrial Planet and Other Holy Grails

So I asked my wife what she though the impact of discovering an Earth like planet would be outside of our solar system. She traditionally rolls her eyes when I start into my discourses on space discoveries and technology. But when I asked her this, she said “I think that we would be on the first ship out of here!”

I asked my father, a busy man who is enthusiastic about spaceflight for my sake but not for any other reason: “if we discovered bacteria on Mars, do you think that that would be significant? He thought it over carefully, and offered a sincere and thoughtful “yes,” after which he sat in thought for several moments.

My point: NASA is poised to make some incredible discoveries in the next decade. MSL, Keppler, JWST… The kind of discoveries that make “normal” people stand up and care.

The Greeks talked about a good message having pathos, ethos, and logos. Ethos, or credibility, NASA has covered. Logos, or logical, NASA might even have a bit to much. But Pathos, the empathetic part of the message, falls short with people who don’t get a rise out of the awesome majesty of an uninhabited Universe.

We have been in the bottom of the bathtub curve with space. The newness wore off well before our technology matured to the point to make some of the fantastic discoveries that we are beginning to make. Messenger, New Horizons, Enceledous investigations, Kepler, JWST, SETI, MSL, scientific competition from other developing nations and now India throws its hat in the manned spaceflight arena; these are fuel to the fire.

I believe that we are on the upswing of the bathtub curve. Weather we find life outside Earth, or we put it there via manned spaceflight, it will ignite interest in the layman (or woman)