Mars Landing Is Evidence of Value of Slow Science

it takes careful planning and study

That's true of any worthwhile endeavor. Our society has devolved significantly from that principle - more to one of instant entertainment.

This is the antithesis to the old "Faster, Better, Cheaper" approach, what engineers recognize as trying to have all three sides of the "pick-two iron-triangle." It seemed like the Columbia disaster finally drove the idea home at NASA that nothing about serious space exploration is made "better" by being both fast and cheap.

If America is not interested in engaging in a 60's Cold War style expense and effort, then meaningful future exploration will require patience.

Slow? What do you mean by "slow" science other than the expression of a relation? Slow compared to what? To your expectations? To those of scientists? To media expectations?

Which is your scale about such qualification?

After all, I think the qualification relates to the need of constant renewal of the media to sell their pages and advertisements contained therein.

I could show how fast is our development: practically every day new discoveries in the infinitely great as in the immensely small reach us. However, for many cultural reasons, our newspapers, magazines and other popular media cannot report them because first of all, they have themselves some problems in figuring out their importance and, secondly, because they feel their public is not in a position to understand what they mean.

Mars Curiosity landing is an achievement and the beginning of a new sub-branch of science: the study of Mars in search of life.

In the meantime, not so long ago, the Higg's Boson has practically been confirmed after a posited theory of 1960, an LHC built since 1998, delivered in 2008, tested for 2 years increasing the power delivery, announcing several new discoveries practically every week, confirming the possibility of the posited theory on July 4th this year and being able to confirm that the posited theory will end being a reality before the end of this year.

Science paces are increasing in speed "from the scientist point of view".

It seems to me is that the people, alike you, is somehow upset about the other incoming (or not incoming but expected) news in politics, economics, finance, nuclear threats, oil cost, joblessness, etc., etc.

And to this point, you are right, because the people is not able to grasp the importance of the new discoveries and, therefore, would not buy the papers or TV shows speaking about them.

If ever you are interested in such speeding of the science, I would recommend the Nature magazine among many others, including "Horizon" from the Swiss National Research Fund.

However, the increase in the acceptance of new technologies depends on people education. In 1960, per ex., the reality of the Higg's boson has been computed and the then "posited" theory was unable to be proved, to show physical and recordable reality because of the then lack of the needed tooling. But 52 years later, thanks to some psychological tricks (disclosure, in the USA, under the name of God's particle) people "accepts" the info.

However, since 1952, because there is a lack of acceptance about the life origin, no paper is reporting the Stanley Miller (Sand Diego University) physical demonstration of how the amino-acids have been created on Earth. These amino-acids are the key for a combination of elements to be able to reproduce itself.

This shows that some things can be "accepted" by the people and others, not. But science is independent from this and the discovery paces keep speeding far more faster than the ability for the people to understand them.

Well Gilbert, as far as space exploration goes, it is not possible to rush success. As the Morpheus moon-lander test just demonstrated, the movement of theory to practical application requires a great up-front investment if it is to result in reliable engineering.

It depends from where you see it ... and you should be aware of it (no reproach at all). Curiosity is a test in reality as it is full of nanotech. Of course, since it has been launched we already did a lot of progress (Dreamliner of Boeing), the engine being conceived in Switzerland, etc.

Never before we went so fast in creating new items which reaches the market so fast (computers and the miniatutization).

I see it very fast compared to the technology we use to have when I was 10.

We are now able to see inside the atoms, as you know, to organize them and get new materials we were unable to figure out just 5 years ago ... not even talking about communications: a message 40 years ago needed to be delivered as telegram about 24 hours, was expensive and not always accurate. This was very fast in comparison to what was going on a century ago. Now you get it in matter of seconds.

Granted, I suppose it depends upon the definition of "fast" or "slow." NASA, however, went through a phase where their own model for engineering seemed to have excluded the "better" part. There is definitely a fallacy of technological success without investment.

I do agree with you that technology has begun to evolve at a rate far exceeding what we see in nature. The language-encoded information for creating technology is far more efficient than DNA at sharing the information necessary to produce new, emergent species of technology. And as some of those developments speed up the rate at which that same information can be shared and acted upon, the effect is compounded.

I have little doubt that I will live to see some pretty significant technological advances.

With the internet people that are interested in the story can follow the progress. Why force it upon others that don't care. If there is a major finding I'm sure every news agency will cover it.