Pathfinder Lands on Mars

Channel 58 (the L.A. city schools’ channel) and the sponsors, Warner Bros. and Lucent Technologies, should be commended for covering the landing on MARS and showing the JPL control room on July 4. It made one feel the thrill of this tremendous technological accomplishment. Regular TV missed this great opportunity.

JOHN and JEAN ALLEN

Pacific Palisades

I would like to congratulate NASA and JPL on their technological achievements in the Mars explorations. However, I question the expenditures involved with this project. While it was exciting to see pictures of a red, barren planet, I truly wonder whether our government and its various agencies could not have found better uses for the money spent.

In a country where the streets are not safe, children go to sleep hungry and diseases such as AIDS and cancer still continue to claim millions of lives annually, I question the appropriateness of attempting to discover if carbon-based life forms exist on Mars. Maybe we should attempt to solve our own civilization’s problems before we worry about the rest of the universe.

STANLEY COHEN

Long Beach

What I don’t understand about this operation is, why did they land the robot in the middle of the desert? Why didn’t they land closer to a city or a mall or something? It’s not like they didn’t know we were coming, now is it? They probably had a can of 3-In-One oil waiting and the place all gussied up for the cameras. It’ll take that little guy a year to find the city from way out there.

BRIAN HILL

Costa Mesa

Regarding the images of the Mars landscape taken by the Sojourner: Am I the only one who thinks the place looks a lot like Roswell, N.M.?

ANDY PEARLMAN

Marina del Rey

Pathfinder mission to Mars: 84 cents per mile. MTA Red Line construction: About $57,000 per foot! Am I missing something?

BRIAN W. FINKE

Los Angeles