What it all means

The big science news of the week was the probe New Horizons passing by the dwarf planet Pluto.  About the most controversial aspect of this mission was whether Pluto should qualify as a planet or needs to be in another category.

Despite all the cheer-leading by NASA and the news media the mission itself doesn’t exactly capture the public imagination.  The probe flew by the Pluto.  It didn’t orbit it even once.  It certainly won’t land on the planet and scoop up Plutonian dirt.  Pluto itself hasn’t proven to be a big surprise either.  It’s still a giant rock covered by snow and ice in the middle of a dark nowhere. The pictures were nice but again nothing unexpected.

So how is this supposed to affect the average human back here on Earth and what if anything can we hope to gain out of it all?

Well, if you said not a hell of a lot then you’re right.  This mission won’t make the price of bread go down or solve the middle east crisis or even get your laundry cleaner.

But what it does do is close the book on the first part of our exploration of this solar system.  We have now done the preliminary exploration on all 8 (or 9) planets that we have.  A task that has taken nearly 60 years to accomplish has been done.  This voyage by itself took nearly a decade and depended largely on precise physics and navigational calculations.  We have now proven conclusively that those can work even in deep space and even by a robot working alone.

The mission itself was done on a shoestring budget.  I think I saw someone mention that a Hollywood blockbuster had a bigger budget than this mission.  The control personnel for the mission came from a University so the experience and know how to do this sort of research is diffusing outside the big government agencies.

No, this was not a big epic mission.  Nothing earth-shaking came out of it.  But it is a crucial step on a road that will one day make this a space faring species and lead us to the next great moment in human history.

Little tiny victories like this is what leads to great accomplishments down the road.