Results of Science

On Nov. 29 you wrote an editorial entitled “NASA on the Wrong Trajectory.” You complain that, another other things, “About the best the agency can do is claim [the International Space Station] ‘is going to benefit humankind . . . in ways we don’t [yet] know.’ ”

I find this very ironic considering that juxtaposed in the adjacent letters column is this comment on a column about Paul MacCready: “MacCready and his staff stood in the early San Joaquin Valley cold to ready the Gossamer Condor for its maiden voyage into the sky. The first human-powered aircraft laboriously moved and soared. Relatively few stood there that morning. Most recalled the drawings of Leonardo da Vinci’s flying machine. None envisioned the legacy of that forgotten morning.”

It is the very nature of doing something new that the results will be different than you can even envision, especially with science. Instead of being a shallow “rationale,” it is among the very best reasons for doing it.

LEE MELLINGER

Valley Glen