New Horizons or Financially Limited Horizons?

摘要

Jan. 19, 2006, marked when I really, really hated Osama bin Laden. Like every other American, the tragedy of 9/11 made me want to destroy al-Qaida, but I viewed the group mediated through the lens of the news. When NASA launched New Horizons to Pluto, however, I began to hate bin Laden for what he made us do - and choose not to do. By itself, New Horizons is an incredible technological achievement But it is much more, a stunning statement of long-term confidence in the future, a demonstration that American engineers, scientists and managers working together could plan, build, launch, maintain and operate a spacecraft for nearly a decade before it reached Pluto, the recently dethroned planet and last major object in our solar system to be visited by an American spacecraft.