from the inbox:
10:00 A.M. CDT
THE PRESIDENT: Hello, everybody.
DR. ELACHI: Good morning, Mr. President.
THE PRESIDENT: Who am I speaking with?
DR. ELACHI: This is Charles
Elachi, the director of JPL. And we have a room full of the mission
operation personnel. This is "Curiosity" Mission Operation on Mars.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, it is great
to talk to all of you. And I just want you to know that we could not be
more excited about what you've been doing.
Somebody asked me the other day
whether you've already found Martians. (Laughter.) I told them we have
to give you a little bit of time. But we know you're all hard at work
and you're getting some well-deserved rest after a successful
landing. And I just wanted to call and say congratulations to the
entire Mars Science Laboratory team, and really all of JPL, on last
Monday's incredible success.
Through your dedicated efforts,
"Curiosity" stuck her landing and captured the attention and imagination
of millions of people not just across our country, but people all
around the world, including Times Square. And what you did
on Mars was incredibly impressive. Those 76 pyrotechnics going off in
perfect succession and the 500,000 lines of code working exactly the way
you guys had ordered them -- so it's really mind-boggling what you've
been able to accomplish. And being able to
get that whole landing sequence to work the way you did is a testimony
to your team.
I especially want to congratulate
Charles Elachi, the head of JPL; the entry descent and landing lead,
Adam Steltzner, who helped devise the final step of this amazing descent
-- the Sky Crane System. What you've accomplished embodies
the American spirit, and your passion and your commitment is making a
difference. And your hard work is now paying dividends, because our
expectation is that "Curiosity" is going to be telling us things that we
did not know before and laying the groundwork
for an even more audacious undertaking in the future, and that's a
human mission to the Red Planet.
I understand there's a special
Mohawk Guy that's working on the mission. (Laughter.) He's been one of
the many stars of the show last Sunday night. And I, in the past,
thought about getting a Mohawk myself -- (laughter) -- but my
team keeps on discouraging me. And now that he's received marriage
proposals and thousands of new Twitter followers, I think that I'm going
to go back to my team and see if it makes sense. (Laughter.)
DR. ELACHI: That's going to be the new fashion at JPL. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: It does sound like
NASA has come a long way from the white shirt, black dark-rimmed
glasses and the pocket protectors. (Laughter.) You guys are a little
cooler than you used to be. (Laughter.)
As all of you know, my
administration has put a big focus on improving science and technology,
engineering and math education. And this is the kind of thing that
inspires kids across the country. They’re telling their moms and dads
they want to be part of a Mars mission -- maybe even the first person
to walk on Mars. And that kind of inspiration is the byproduct of work
of the sort that you guys have done.
So not only do I want to
congratulate the team, I want to call out a few of the leaders of the
group, including Adam, but also Peter Theisinger, Richard Cook, John
Grotzinger, John Grunsfeld. And I’d like to congratulate and thank
all of our international partners -- Spain, Russia, Germany, France,
Canada, Italy, Japan, Australia -- all of them contributed, I know, to
the instrumentation “Curiosity” landed on Martian surface -- and all the
scientists who are part of the JPL team.
So you guys
have done an outstanding job. You made us all proud. You’ve made NASA
proud. You guys are examples of American know-how and ingenuity, and
it’s really an amazing accomplishment. So we can’t wait
to start hearing back from “Curiosity” and finding out what’s going
on. We’re fortunate to be part of a society that can reach beyond our
planet and explore frontiers that were only imagined by our ancestors.
So it’s inspiring to all of us.
I’m going to
give you guys a personal commitment to protect these critical
investments in science and technology. I thank you for devoting your
lives to this cause. And if, in fact, you do make contact with
Martians,
please let me know right away. (Laughter.) I’ve got a lot of other
things on my plate, but I suspect that that will go to the top of the
list. (Laughter.) Even if they’re just microbes, it will be pretty
exciting. (Laughter.)
DR. ELACHI:
Well, thank you, Mr. President. And on behalf of all us at NASA, we
thank you for taking the time to give us a call. And, hopefully, we
inspired some of the millions of young people who were watching
this landing. Thank you again.
THE
PRESIDENT: Well, you’ve already inspired us, but I know that the
photographs that are going to start coming back are going to be
remarkable and amazing. And, again, you guys should be remarkably
proud. Really
what makes us best as a species is this curiosity that we have and this
yearning to discover and know more, and push the boundaries of
knowledge. And you are perfect examples of that, and we couldn’t be
more grateful to you.
So, congratulations. Keep up the great work.
DR. ELACHI: Thank you very much. And have a good day.
THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Bye-bye, guys. (Applause.)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment