Dueling Pundits

Jim Ryan forwarded me a link to today’s Anne Applebaum column, where she describes the desire to send men to Mars as “naive.” I’d read the thing last night in the middle of my little site redesign, and decided I was too busy — and too disgusted — to write anything about it.

So instead, read Bill Safire:

. . .The fear factor is largely gone from China’s plans for a lunar orbital station, France’s commercial satellite launching service and Russia’s attempts to stay in the game. Competition in space is keen but not mean. In July, when our spacecraft Cassini (named after an Italian-born astronomer) completes its seven-year journey to Titan, a cloud-shrouded, planet-size moon circling Saturn, the lander called Huygens will be a European product.

The wonderment at this search for life is a corrective to all the death and destruction, candidate clashes and cable catfights on today’s media menu.

In “Pilgrim’s Progress,” John Bunyan wrote in 1684 of the man with the muck rake who “could look no way but downwards” and could not see the celestial crown being offered him from above.

Look up; the cooperative competition in space is inspiring.

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