Robot as Time magazine's Person of the Year?
“You may own a cool car — you may even own a truly great car — but it’s a cinch that no matter how fantastic it is, it can never be anything more than the second best car in the solar system,” explains Time magazine. “The greatest of all is the Mars Curiosity rover, one ton of SUV-size machine now 160 million miles from Earth and trundling across the Martian surface.”
Time explains that it was the rover’s landing on Mars last August “that first caught people’s eyes: an improbable operation that required a hovering mother ship to lower the rover to the surface on cables like a $2.5 billion marionette.”
“But it’s the two years of exploration Curiosity has ahead of it — with a suite of instruments 10 times as large as any ever carried to Mars before — that will make real news. NASA built the country one sweet ride, and yes, alas, it’s sweeter than yours.”
Selected among 40 candidates, Time is giving readers a chance to cast their vote for the venerable spacecraft.
Note: But get cracking as you need to vote before 11:59 p.m. on Dec. 12.
The people’s choice winner will be announced on Dec. 14.
Cast your vote by going to the Time poll at: http://ti.me/WEZT8y
By Leonard David