2 The Hampton Roads Messenger


Volume 7 Number 1


KEEP YOUR CAR TRADE


CAR REFINANCE LOANS FOR AS LOW


AS 1.99% FOR UP TO 72 MONTHS


1.99% APR* Car refinance


CALL TODAY & LOWER YOUR


MONTHLY PAYMENT


September 2012


Curiosity for Life on Mars: Our Place is in Space


YOUR LOAN


In the Payload Hazardous Servicing Facility at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, technicians process the backshell for NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL).


BY ANDREW LAM Mars has become a very busy


place, being orbited by satellites and crisscrossed by Land Rovers. As if that’s not enough, Curiosity, a roving science laboratory, just successful landed at the planet’s ancient crater to probe for signs that the planet was life-friendly in the past.


Indeed, we are mapping and


processing our neighboring planet so extensively that it feels as if Mars has already been colonized. There is even a Google Mars website if you want to see the planet’s surface in technicolor.


Man, despite our earthly crises,


*Rates based on creditworthiness, so your rate may differ. Existing LFCU loans not eligible for this offer. Payment example: Loan amount of $20,000.00 at this 1.99% APR for 72 months would have monthly payments of $14.76 per $1000 borrowed. This rate applies to 2007-2012 year models. Rates and terms are subject to change at any time without notice.


remains enthralled by the cosmos. NASA is planning manned missions to Mars in the 2030’s- with the cooperation of Japan and Europe - and plans to establish a permanent station on the moon. China, too, hopes to have a manned station orbiting the


moon, having sent a moon orbiter in 2010 to map it out and in 2013, it’ll send a landing rover. All the while, our satellites, probes and telescopes are peering deep into the heavens looking for signs of extraterrestrial life.


Welcome to the post-global age.


We are now entering an age where human interactions reach beyond the stratospheres of our world toward the cosmos.


Call it cosmozation, or better yet, empyrealization--an age where man’s reach for the heavens is realized. Neither words exist yet in the dictionary, but for that matter neither did globalization 3 decades ago. (So feel free to come up with a coinage that may be à propos to our post-global age.)


Roland Robertson, a social


scientist, defines globalization as “The compression of the world and the in- tensification of consciousness of the world as a whole.” The world shrinks,


LIFE ON MARS PAGE 14


Hampton Roads Convention Center


PEOPLE HAVE Gathered HERE FOR OVER 400 YEARS. COME JOIN THE GROUP. 800.487.8778 VisitHampton.com


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16