A New Frontier

Today I watched as we finally landed on the planet Mars. Today at approx. 7:55pm, the spacecraft Phoenix landed on the polar ice cap of Mars. It was a neat experience to watch this unfold live on NASA TV via the Internet. I gathered up the boys, and we watched mission control as they anxiously awaited telemetry to beam back to earth announcing the arrival of Phoenix. This has been 5 years in the making and just under one year in flight heading for the final destination. I guess I am in awe as to how we can build and navigate such a craft through such a long distance and land right where they wanted it to. If you think simple odds it seems impossible. Mars, at it's closest is approx. 33,900,000 miles away. At it's greatest distance, it can be as far as 249,000,000 miles away. Can you imagine trying to use Google maps for that.

Anyway, I thought this was a neat day for NASA and America as we conquer new frontiers and explore this wonderful and complex universe that God created.