SS: Let’s bring in NASA’s Adam Steltzner now he’s a lead mechanical engineer for this clearly very risky operation. Sir, congratulations, why was it so tough?
AS: Well thank you very much. Uh, curiosity’s a big rover – bigger than anything we’ve put on the surface of any planet – and getting her safely to the surface was a hard job and required some innovation.
SS: For those who look at the checkbook for the country and say, “Uh, we’re out of money”, why did we need to spend this two and a half bill[ion]?
AS: Well, um, you know, exploration is a fundamentally human thing and more importantly it’s a fundamentally American thing. And, uh, this seven dollars for every man, woman, and child, uh, it’s the price of a movie, and it’s a movie I think the American people want to see.
SS: Hmm. Uh. When you find a movie theater around these parts for seven bucks, I want to go to it. But, but, but, before, uh, [stuttering], in all seriousness, in all seriousness, the object of being on Mars, besides getting a person there – that doesn’t do anything really but put a person there – what are we hoping to learn, or how are we hoping to better ourselves?
AS: Well we have some exciting science that we’re, that we’re planning to do on Mars. We’re asking the question “Could life have existed, or does it still exist, on Mars?”, which has kind of a profound implication as to whether we’re alone or not.
SS: And I’m assuming that we’re hoping to learn something about something here. You know it’d be really cool to know whether there was life ever on Mars, or if there’s…ever – is that life on Mars now, or whatever. But besides it being cool, how does that help?
AS: Well you know, uh, most – many of the questions that we ask, many of the questions that we ask as humans that have developed things like the television that I’m speaking to you through, that camera, uh, they didn’t come out of questions that necessarily we knew the answers were practical. They came out of our innate human curiosity and us wondering what was around the next corner. That’s how we tamed the West here in the United States, and that’s why we’re on Mars today.
SS: Hmm. Very interesting. Well we look forward to seeing those pictures with you and everybody else in the world, and congratulations on a, on a historic feat.
AS: Thank you very much, we’re very proud.
SS: I bet you are. Good luck and thank you.
Emphasis mine, to indicate where the pictured gesticulating occurred.
Obligatory_Haiku on August 16th, 2017 at 19:04 UTC »
Left, right, black, or white
One thing we should all concur:
Space is fucking cool.
AsthmaticMechanic on August 16th, 2017 at 19:29 UTC »
ACTUAL EXCHANGE:
Emphasis mine, to indicate where the pictured gesticulating occurred.
Mercerai on August 16th, 2017 at 22:44 UTC »
This is some 2013 Facebook shit