Today's competition in space: keen, not mean.More than curiosity or altruism altruism (ăl`tr  ĭz`əm), concept in philosophy and psychology that holds that the interests of others, rather than of the self, can motivate an individual. or even profit, what drives discovery is the spirit of competition. In the 20th century, stung stung v. Past tense and past participle of sting. stung Verb the past of sting Adj. 1. by the triumph of the Soviet Union putting Sputnik Sputnik: see satellite, artificial; space exploration. Sputnik Any of a series of Earth-orbiting spacecraft whose launching by the Soviet Union inaugurated the space age. into orbit, President Kennedy said that America had "tossed its cap over the wall of space" to be first to land a man on the moon. We won that competition with Communism in space. Now we are stunned stun tr.v. stunned, stun·ning, stuns 1. To daze or render senseless, by or as if by a blow. 2. To overwhelm or daze with a loud noise. 3. by our new successes. But a curious change has taken place in the nature of that drive: the desire to be first is there, but the fear of being beaten is less. When Britain's lander, the Beagle 2, failed to communicate a "Merry Christmas" recently, the reaction here was not "Nyah, nyah, here comes ours." On the contrary, our feeling was "We failed a few times ourselves, and maybe your robot will, be heard from yet." In the same way, the fear factor is largely gone from China's plans for a lunar orbital orbital Mathematical expression, called a wave function, that describes properties characteristic of no more than two electrons near an atomic nucleus or molecule. An orbital can be considered a three-dimensional region in which there is a 95% probability of finding an station, France's commercial satellite-launching service, and Russia's attempts to stay in the game. 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. [1/7/04] |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion