Staying Put Means Death

Sometimes it takes an outsider to remind us who we really are. Nathalie Cabrol, who grew up in France and was hooked on space exploration from an early age, came to this country in 1994 and is now a U.S. citizen.

A veteran of the Mars Exploration Rover mission, she is passionate about her adopted country, where her dreams of becoming a Mars explorer came true.

She is also distressed by recent cuts to planetary exploration, as she told me when I interviewed her last March. Her message is simple: Humans are meant to be explorers. And even in tough economic times, America must explore space.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/kNrW6awc6ts