Science

The Mars rover made an amazing landing last night. I am so glad for them and for us. Kiernan told me not long ago that he wanted to go to space sometime. He said this in the same tone that he tells me he wants to go to Nana's house or to the Mall. I told him that sometime he probably could.
It means so much to me that that is true.
I read a lot of Sci-Fi, and when Kiernan was born I started to think about what books we could share as he got older. I read books in common with my parents and grandparents and generally come from a reading family. It is something that is very important to me. So I started looking around for juvinile Sci-Fi to see what sort of stories we might be sharing in a few years. I came across the Heinlein juveniles books. These were written in the 40's and 50's and star boy scout-esque heros doing science and exploring outer space. The first one I read struck me as incredibly nostalgic and retro. I thought about the mood quite a bit as I began to find and read the others and realized that the feeling of optimism and faith in science was striking me as odd. I began to wonder when we lost our hope in progress and when we became so skeptical of "progress".
I was really charmed by the "can do" spirit and the sense of wonder and adventure that the books portraide. They are not books without flaw and I have more than minor quibles with Heinline generally but absolutley I will read these books to the kids or hand them over to be read.
The Mars landing makes me feel like complicated, dificult and risky things are still possible and that we still, in some small part, value exploration.