Word: planetful
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...world long fascinated by legends and fantasies about the Red Planet, the news had an electrifying effect, inspiring awe, disbelief, excitement--and, from not a few experts, skeptically raised eyebrows. The importance of the putative discovery was underscored by an immediate response from the White House. "Today Rock 84001 speaks to us across all those billions of years and millions of miles," proclaimed President Clinton as he set off for a three-day campaign swing through California. "It speaks of the possibility of life. If this discovery is confirmed, it will surely be one of the most stunning insights into...
Even before all the talk of Martian microfossils, the Red Planet was a hot target for NASA, with as many as 10 unmanned missions tentatively scheduled during the next 10 years. After the buzz created by last week's foot-high LIFE ON MARS! headlines, all those missions suddenly look a lot less tentative. And with President Clinton choosing this moment to pledge his continued support for space exploration, at least some people at NASA are beginning to whisper again about a project whose name they long dared not speak: a manned mission to Mars...
...general, trans-Martian travel is possible for only six to eight weeks every 25 months; it is then that Mars' and Earth's orbital pas de deux around the sun brings the two planets close enough to make the trip practical. The next window opens this fall, and NASA intends to take advantage of it. Between Nov. 6 and Dec. 31, the space agency will launch two missions to Mars. The first, the Mars Global Surveyor, is an orbiter that will arrive in September 1997 and spend at least four months circling the planet and mapping its geology and climate...
...Jones is vindicated: we see that some 16 million years ago, the slapstick asteroid A slammed into planet B (Mars, the fourth rock from the sun), dislodging spud-size meteorite C, which spitballed through space and whammed into planet D (Earth). Betimes, the alien microspud wakes up in the Antarctic and assumes the shape of an outlandishly hot idea, E (LIFE ON MARS!!!!), which pinballs hectically through Earthling media, knocking vases off the mantelpiece, toppling assumptions, causing tabloid amazement and theological consternation...
...wandering piece of Mars reminds everyone of cartoons and fantasies that the Red Planet has always stimulated; among other things, it has brought radio talk shows alive with the voices of vindicated UFO spotters, the Mars rock being their Rosetta stone, the key that unlocks the mystery. But does the rock threaten the centuries-long assumptions and designs of theology...