Oh, the things we can do when we put our minds to it

The men and women of NASA clear- ly still have the ability to amaze anyone paying the slightest bit of attention.

The agency’s latest triumph was engineered from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California and executed 154 million miles away on the surface of Mars. The aptly named rover Curiosity slowed itself from its cruising speed of 13,000 mph to a safe descent and gentle landing on the Red Planet.

And it almost immediately began transmitting startlingly sharp and beautiful pictures of the planet’s landscape back to Earth.

Meanwhile, scientists began what they called a “brain transplant,” erasing the programming that Curiosity used during its complicated approach and descent and replacing it with new programs that will allow it to begin exploring the surface of Mars. Its journey will take it on a search for answers to age-old questions about the origin and development of our solar system.

This is not the first time, that NASA has had a successful mission to Mars. Just as the United States’ accomplishments in exploring the moon were unrivalled in the 1960s and ’70s, NASA has had singular success in putting rovers into operation on Mars over the last 15 years. Sojourner’s success in 1996 was followed in January 2004 by the twin Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Spirit sent data home until 2010, and Opportunity is still functioning.

Curiosity was launched last Nov. 26 and covered about 350 million as the Earth and Mars followed their separate orbits before Curiosity’s successful touchdown last week.

It’s like shooting an arrow from a car speeding around an inner track and hitting a car that’s racing around an outer track that is twice as long. What are the odds? So far, if the person shooting the arrow is anyone but an American, not very good. But if the shooter works for NASA, he hits the mark about 8 times out of 10.

Getting ready to move

NASA engineers will spend some time testing Curiosity’s robotic arms and instruments, and early next month, it will start rolling from its landing site in Gale Crater toward Sharp Mount, which is higher than any mountain on Earth. For anyone with an interest in science, it promises to be an exciting trip.

It is also a demonstration and a reminder of how far the United States is ahead of any other nation in space exploration. China and Russia are planning to send rovers to the moon. The European Union is working on a Mars probe that will blast off in about five years.

This is a good time to ask ourselves if, as a nation, we are prepared for the day when the United States cedes its superiority in space exploration to another nation or group of nations.

Our success in space has not only been a matter of national pride, it has produced enormous advances in science, hundreds of which we benefit from every day without even realizing it.

Is space exploration expensive? Unquestionably. This mission will cost about $2.5 billion. That’s about half of what the London Olympics were supposed to cost. The final cost of the Games, about $15 billion, would have paid for six Mars missions.

Granted, we’re talking about apples and oranges, and the Olympics were watched by more people than the Curiosity landing. The point to the comparison is that great nations recognize some things as worth doing, and they do them. Let’s hope Curiosity is more of a beginning than an end for what the United States is willing to do.