DEAR EDITOR:

Rich Lowry’s editorial regarding the triumph of the Artemis II mission reflects a shortsighted opinion of the U.S. space program. Artemis is surely an accomplishment — one of many at NASA — and, as Lowry suggests, it has its issues (no reusability, older technologies, cost, etc). Nevertheless, the U.S. Space program is one of the most successful and accomplished on earth. The press doesn’t cover unmanned missions but they make up some of the most exciting missions ever undertaken. I will try to cover some of these missions in “letters to the editor.”

Consider the Juno Mission, now in its third mission extension. It is powered by solar arrays, in fact, the most distant arrays from the sun — on the order of 480 million miles. Jupiter has some of the most ferocious magnetic fields of all the planets but so far, the electronic components are so well shielded that the mission has long completed its mission objectives and the mission has been extended. At one point, it was just 5,400 miles above the famous red spot, screaming along at 29,000 mph.

The Cassini mission, which ended in 2014, studied Saturn and its environment for 13 years. It revealed a new understanding of Saturn including the hexagally shaped storm at the north pole, its magnetic fields, and, of course, the complexity of its rings. Cassini also found an ocean of liquid water containing organic molecules on the moon Enceladus. It also carried the Huygens probe which touched down on Saturn’s moon Titan, revealing a world of streams and lakes of liquid methane.

The Perseverance rover is exploring the surface of Mars. Perseverance carried the little Ingenuity helicopter with it. Ingenuity was a technology demonstration that performed so well, it ended up becoming part of the operational mission of Perseverance. The little copter weighed just 1.5 pounds (on Mars) and had a wingspan of four feet which turned at a whopping 2,400 RPM (because the Martian atmosphere is but 1% of earth’s atmosphere). It had to fly autonomously because signals traveling between the earth and Mars via Perseverance, take as long as 20 minutes. The “little copter that could” flew 72 missions, helping mission planners direct the search with the rover. In all, it flew 10.8 miles.

There are many other missions going on as well. But make no mistake, NASA is leading the charge in space exploration and scientific understanding.

DAVID J. BISIGNANI

Austintown