Pre-School Music Education Expert: The Children’s Advocate for Love and Kindness, Inspiring Creativity and Joy.
August 8, 2012—NASA’s Curiosity
While the rest of the world is watching the Olympics, NASA has been having their own Olympics, celebrating a Gold Medal touch-down of the Curiosity onto the surface of the planet Mars! Sunday night Curiosity touched down on the service of Mars, sending a signal on Monday morning at 1:32 a.m. Eastern Time saying, “I made it!” Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters called this “The Super Bowl of planetary exploration.” According to an NBC News article, “Curiosity is the biggest and most capable robotic laboratory ever sent to another celestial body.” It plans to spend at least 2 Earth years on Mars, studying the chemistry of Mars’ rocks, soil and atmosphere and trying to determine whether Mars had been habitable in ancient times. What a triumph for NASA, America and the exploration of space!
Just before Curiosity landed, Adam Steltzner, the engineer who drew up the landing plan, said he was “rationally confident” and “emotionally terrified.” As for me, I am impressed. We are witnessing modern day explorers. The vast immensity of the universe beckons us as we reach out to see what’s there.
I have one older brother who has always been fascinated with the universe. Ever since I was a very young child, he would bring me outside to stare through his telescope, examining the stars twinkling in the nighttime sky. We sat together and watched the television as the Lunar Escape Module touched down on the moon. Light intrigued him, the “why” and “what’s out there”, called to him and today he is a research scientist, another modern day explorer.
As a parent and preschool teacher, I have always wanted to share the excitement of outer space and exploration with the children around me. As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, I wrote an entire CD, “Fern, the Stars and the Planets”, as a way to spark curiosity in our young children’s minds, inspiring them to become astronauts and modern day explorers. One of their favorite songs from my album is called “Beep,Beep,Beep / Here Comes My Rocket.” Their imaginations soar as they head into outer space, all on their own, in search of “what’s out there.”
Congratulations to NASA and kudos to Curiosity—the perfect name for our Mars Science Laboratory and for the children of tomorrow as they watch with curiosity and develop a quest to study the stars and beyond.