pA:11, v11.26 — The World Around Us

The World Around Us

Mountain Views News, Sierra Madre Edition [Pasadena] Saturday, July 1, 2017

MVNews this week: Page A:11

THE WORLD AROUND US

Mountain Views-News Saturday, July 1, 2017

WHY NO ONE UNDER 20 HAS EXPERIENCED A DAY WITHOUT NASA AT MARS

As the Mars Pathfinder spacecraft approached its
destination on July 4, 1997, no NASA mission had
successfully reached the Red Planet in more than
20 years.

Even the mission team anxiously awaiting
confirmation that the spacecraft survived its
innovative, bouncy landing could not anticipate
the magnitude of the pivot about to shape the Space
Age.

In the 20 years since Pathfinder’s touchdown,
eight other NASA landers and orbiters have arrived
successfully, and not a day has passed without the
United States having at least one active robot on
Mars or in orbit around Mars.

The momentum propelled by Pathfinder’s
success is still growing. Five NASA robots and
three from other nations are currently examining
Mars. The two decades since Pathfinder’s landing
have taken us about halfway from the first Mars
rover to the first astronaut bootprint on Mars,
proposed for the 2030s.

“Pathfinder initiated two decades of continuous
Mars exploration bringing us to the threshold
of sample return and the possibility of humans
on the first planet beyond Earth,” said Michael
Meyer, lead scientist for NASA’s Mars Exploration
Program at the agency’s headquarters in
Washington.

Pathfinder’s rover, named Sojourner for the
civil-rights crusader Sojourner Truth, became the
best-known example of the many new technologies
developed for the mission. Though Sojourner was
only the size of a microwave oven, its six-wheel
mobility system and its portable instrument for
checking the composition of rocks and soil were the
foundation for the expanded size and capabilities
of later Mars rovers.

“Without Mars Pathfinder, there could not
have been Spirit and Opportunity, and without
Spirit and Opportunity, there could not have
been Curiosity,” Pathfinder Project Scientist Matt
Golombek of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, California, said of the subsequent
generations of Mars rovers. JPL is now developing
another Mars rover for launch in 2020.

NASA planned Pathfinder primarily as a
technology demonstration mission, but it also
harvested new knowledge about Mars, from the
planet’s iron core to its atmosphere, and from its
wetter and warmer past to its arid modern climate.

The space agency was shifting from less-
frequent, higher-budget missions to a strategy of
faster development and lower budgets. Pathfinder
succeeded within a real-year, full-mission budget
of $264 million, a small fraction of the only
previously successful Mars lander missions, the
twin Vikings of 1976.

“We needed to invent or re-invent 25 technologies
for this mission in less than three years, and we
knew that if we blew the cost cap, the mission
would be cancelled,” said JPL’s Brian Muirhead,
flight system manager and deputy project manager
for Pathfinder. “Everybody who was part of the
Mars Pathfinder Project felt we’d done something
extraordinary, against the odds.”

Crucial new technologies included an advanced
onboard computer, the rover and its deployment
system, solid-fuel rockets for deceleration, and
airbags inflating just before touchdown to cushion
the impact of landing. NASA re-used most of the
Pathfinder technologies to carry out the Mars
Exploration Rover Project, which landed Spirit and
Opportunity on Mars in 2004.

You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@
MtnViewsNews.com.

OUT TO PASTOR

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder

CHRISTOPHER Nyerges

BECOMING AWARE OF OUR

LARGER PICTURE

Introducing Initiative-2217

SOME PATRIOTIC REFLECTIONS

FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY

[Nyerges is the author
of “How to Survive
Anywhere,” “Extreme
Simplicity: Homesteading in the City,” “Foraging
California,” and other books. He can be reached
at www.SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com, or Box 41834,
Eagle Rock, CA 90041]

We’re all more-or-less aware of certain realities
that surround us and define our day-to-day reality.
We live here in Southern California, in the Sierra
Madre area, with hills to the north, and various
waterways to our east and west in this coastal
desert plain. Approximately 80% of the water
that we need for daily life comes from afar. We
know there are way too many people living here
for the local ecology to support, so not only does
our water come from afar, but so does our food,
our power, and nearly all of the goods that fill
the supermarket and hardware store shelves. The
streets and apartments get steadily more crowded.

If you live here, you’re aware of these physical
realities. You’re no doubt doing your best every
day to get to work and the store and school and
to support your family so your life situation
can improve. Most of us are aware of the larger
physical reality of living here, but the necessities
of our life keep that reality as a subtle background
awareness. It isn’t something we tend to think
about a lot.

That is, we don’t think about this unless there is
an immediate, or impending, crisis.

The recent several-years drought forced most
of us, including city and state leaders, to begin
the slow process of re-thinking how we do things,
especially as it relates to water. This is because the
lifestyle that we have all somewhat automatically
chosen to live is not sustainable. We’ve created a
world in the sprawling Los Angeles basin that is
powered by the auto, where houses are packed
into every imaginable piece of ground, where
developers seek to maximize the economic utility
of every bit of real estate, and local politicians
are all too happy to support this unsustainable
mindset.

Our chosen lifestyle is stressful on the landscape,
and stressful on our nerves. It requires bringing
in water from afar, with electricity generated far
away, a world kept alive by countless services from
within and without.

One of the great ironies of this dream world is
that, though we must bring in water from afar to
support our population, we then divert the water
that we do get here quickly out to the ocean in
the network of channelized rivers that have been
created over the past century. We know why this is
done, of course, because natural rivers want to go
this way and that when the heavy rains are falling.
So we channel our valuable water out to ocean as
quickly as possible to protect our valuable real
estate that was built too close to the river in the
first place.

Solutions abound, of course. Many pioneers
have been taking bold steps to move us away from
the disasters that will be the consequence of our
choices. Let’s explore just a few of those solutions.

The trend towards drought tolerant lawns is a
step in the right direction. Since about 80% of our
water comes from afar, we don’t need green lawns
just for the sake of aesthetics.

With the water that we do use, everything but
the toilet water can and should go into yards, where
it is feasible to do so, to water landscaping plants,
fruit trees, and gardens. This naturally requires
the use of safe detergents, such as the Seventh
Generation brand, or the Ed Begley Jr. brand.
Plus, the building and safety department of each
city needs to seriously review its view of gray water
recycling. Gray water recycling is something that
can be done very easily, economically, and safely,
but the city’s stringent requirements are costly
and more of an impediment than any sort of
encouragement to go this route.

Composting toilets are another idea whose time
has come. Yes, they must be maintained properly,
and they are not as care-free as flush toilets. Yet,
consider the vast swath of human history where
the toilet contents because a fertilizer for certain
crops, with no need to waste vast volumes of water.
As we think to a sustainable future, the compost
toilets can be improved so they can be a staple in
most households.

The Southland’s water issues will only get
worse as time goes on, as a function of increasing
population. It is instructive to review records of
our area from 100+ years ago, when the water table
was higher and when the landscape looked green,
not like a desert. One of the solutions looking
to the future is to quit planting inappropriate
landscaping plants, some of which are incredibly
water-thirsty. The eucalyptus tree, for example, is
one of the highest water-users and wells have been
known to dry up after they are planted. They also
“poison” the soil so that other more useful plants
will not thrive. Far better is to follow the lead of
such groups as Tree People and other tree-planting
groups plant appropriate native trees.

These are just a few ways in which we can go
back to the future. I envision a plan that will look
200 years into the future, allowing us to voluntarily
move into a culture that is sustainable for this area.
I call this Initiative-2217, a long-term vision which
will be a unifying project of numerous groups
working towards viable solutions. I will be sharing
more of these details as the months proceed.

The Fourth of July is upon us and nobody enjoys
a party more than Yours Truly. I will offer any
excuse to break into some kind of a party mode.
The slightest hint of refreshments and I have my
"these-boots-were-made-for-walking" footwear
on and I am ready to go.

I especially like birthday parties, when it is
somebody else's birthday, that is. I have found
when it is my birthday party too many people
want to congratulate me on another milestone
in my life that I do not get a chance to enjoy the
delectable refreshments. Smiling and stuffing the
face do not go together.

But a patriotic party is something altogether
different. It is the birthday of our country and it
is hard to imagine anybody celebrating too much
on this anniversary. Over 230 years ago, give or
take, this country came into being. And what a
country it has been.

Do we have problems? The only people without
problems are those resting quite peacefully at
Boot Hill. If there is life, there are problems.
Our country has been of such a nature that no
problem has been too big to solve. We are a nation
of problem solvers. Henceforth, we need problem
makers in order to prove what great problem
solvers we are.

If we had no problems in our country today
nobody would know just how great we really are
at solving problems. I do not get upset with all the
problems floating around in our country today. I
know any problem is a temporary inconvenience
and that in the long run, good usually wins out.

As I was thinking about this year's Fourth of July
celebration, I began to reflect on all of the good in
our country. If you want to see any good in this
country, you first have to turn off the television
newscasts, lay aside the daily newspaper and turn
off your radio and then go take a stroll in the park
where real life takes place.

I know the news media has to do their job, but
do they have to do it so well?

For example, if there is some social burp
somewhere in our country (especially if it is
some celebrity) the news media from all over the
country goes to that spot and for the next week
there is 24/7 coverage of that little burp. After
three days of constant news coverage, it is not
hard to conclude that the entire world is going to
that really hot place in a handbasket.

For every negative story in the news today,
there are 99 unreported incidences of peace and
goodwill toward men. Maybe it is a good thing
that only bad stories catch the headlines. Maybe
that is an indication that in reality bad is the
exception and good is the norm. Well, one can
dream can't he?

In spite of all the dissing of America, there are
plenty of things to celebrate this coming Fourth
of July.

I was at the supermarket picking up an item on
my way home the other day and as I was waiting
to pay the bill, I happened to look at one of my
dollar bills. Right in the middle of that dollar bill
in plain sight were the words, "In God We Trust."
I chuckled to myself. Every time someone uses a
dollar bill in this country, they are giving tribute
to the awesome fact that this country was built
upon trust in God. And not just any God, but the
Judeo-Christian God of the Holy Bible.

One of my favorite sports is baseball. Just before
any game the entire stadium stands and sings,
The Star-Spangled Banner. In the middle of that
song there is a phrase that goes, "And this be our
motto: ‘In God is our trust!’"

Our founding fathers took for granted
something that this generation has long ago
forgotten. Everything in this country is built
upon God. Not some generic god, but the God
of the Bible. To disavow that is to misunderstand
what the founding of this country was all about.

I often hear people crying out in defense of their
ignorance, "Separation of church and state." That
is about as possible as separating the hydrogen out
of the air we breathe. It can be done but it leaves us
with something we cannot breathe and exist.

Then, every time we look at the American flag,
we are reminded of the "Pledge of Allegiance to
the American flag." A little phrase in that pledge
says, "One nation under God." Again, the God
referred to is the God of the Bible.

For those who are trying to get away from God
they have an impossible task on their hands.
Every time they use an American dollar, they
are acknowledging our trust in God as a nation.
Every time they go to a baseball game and sing
The Star-Spangled Banner, they are singing about
their trust in God.

Even atheists in this country have to start with
God in order to define who he or she is. If I did not
believe in God, I would not spend all my time and
energy and resources fighting against something
that I do not believe exists.

But as I celebrate the Fourth of July, I will
pause and give thanks to God for America and I
probably will sing, "America! America! God shed
his grace on thee."

The Rev. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family
of God Fellowship, 1471 Pine Road, Ocala, FL
34472. He lives with his wife, Martha, in Silver
Springs Shores. Call him at 352-687-4240 or e-mail
jamessnyder2@att.net. The church web site is www.
whatafellowship.com.

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