ESA/NASA Images taken by the Cassini-Huygens space probe shows details from Saturn's largest moon, Titan, including dark pebbles of dirty hydrocarbon-coated ice.

Space Probe Makes Science Fiction Wonders of Childhood Real

(Page 2 of 2)

In two short hours, one small unmanned probe changed my direct experience of our solar system in ways that I never imagined. Now I am craving for more such highs. Perhaps I will witness further probes that may dive into distant alien seas underneath frozen moons. Perhaps one will send home clear evidence of alien life existing or extinct.

Realistically, however, the future is likely to be one of cutbacks and shortfalls, with billions of dollars headed to protect populations that we put in jeopardy, or build costly missile defenses against nonexistent threats. One can only hope that there is enough imagination left in government to allow us to keep supporting the missions that do the science that can really change the way we think about our place in the universe.

To boldly go where no one has gone before in ways that only unmanned spacecraft can do will cost so little in comparison that such an effort shouldn't interfere with the current priority of allowing astronauts to have new adventures on the Moon.

It is significant in this regard that the Huygens probe was a product of the European Space Agency, working in concert with NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. This not only demonstrates that Europe is now a leading player in space exploration, but it shows that for grand human projects, like the exploration of our universe or the exploration of space and time on fundamental scales, we can and need to work together on a global scale.

This is one of the side benefits of the scientific enterprise. But even more than this, the universe continues to surprise us in ways we can never anticipate. Ultimately it is far more interesting than anything that science fiction writers or artists may imagine. Life may imitate art, but ultimately it transcends it. Which is why we sometimes need to turn to the universe itself for inspiration.

Dr. Lawrence M. Krauss is the director of the Center for Education and Research in Cosmology and Astrophysics at Case Western Reserve University. His most recent book was "Atom."

| 1 | 2