MISSION TO MARS CAPTURES ATTENTION

Twenty-eight years ago this month Neil Armstrong landed on the moon and transfixed a nation, and even the world. And now in another July, NASA has triumphed again with its Pathfinder mission to Mars. It is a practical as well as a public relations success for the beleaguered federal agency, which has had its share of disasters to go along with its many wonders.

Americans can once again be proud of NASA, which might learn from and build on this success. In this regard the unmanned mission to Mars contrasts quite favorably with the expensive boondoggles that the repetitive shuttle missions have become. For cost-effectiveness there is simply no comparison. Leading scientists in the American Physical Society have pointed out that for all the billions spent on countless shuttle missions, the return in either new knowledge, new products or capturing the public imagination is tiny.

The tremendous public interest might be read as helping to chart a fruitful course for the agency. Give us more unmanned missions such as the Pathfinder, with its wondrous, six-wheeled Sojourner robot rover, gathering information and transmitting it back to a planet full of amazed people craving more of the same.