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Golden Opportunities
To his surprise and delight, David Lustick has discovered that NASA loves to share its successes with curious
correspondents.

was thirteen in the summer of 1976 and the proud


owner of a hand-me-down telescope from my older
brother, Ian. It was not much more than a glorified spyglass. On many summer nights I would try in desperation to
use this device, with very little luck. What kind of magic does
it take, I wondered, to actually
witness the marvels of the night
sky? It seemed I would never get
to participate firsthand in the
great exploration of the cosmos.
As it turned out, my cousin,
Rick, would soon solve my problem. Rick was a year older than I
and at 13 a year is an eternity.
He always seemed to be one step
ahead in everything. As I arrived
at his house one Thanksgiving, Rick said, Dave,
come up to my room. I
got something in the mail
yesterday that I think youll
like. Once upstairs, he picked
up a Golden Packet from his desk
that had JPL printed in the
upper-left corner. He opened the
envelope and carefully withdrew
several 8-by-10-inch lithographs.
Holding them by the edge, he
passed them to me for inspection.
I knew exactly what they were:
images from the surface of Mars
from the Viking landers.
The quality of the pictures I held was so amazing that I
stared at them dumbfounded. Where did you get these? I
asked. Rick explained that hed written to the Jet Propulsion
Laboratory in Pasadena, California, and he received the envelope full of images in reply. The idea that photographs and information like this could be gotten free just by writing a
letter was unbelievable to me.
Upon returning home, I immediately sent a letter to the address Rick had given me. Finally, 212 months later, I received
the same Golden Packet from JPL, stuffed full with the same
prints and literature about Mars. I would study and restudy
the images for hours, poring over the descriptions on their
backs. Vicariously I was there with the Viking landers as they
tested the soil and atmosphere. I saw dust storms and ancient
riverbeds, sunrises and sunsets, frost forming in the morning,
and fresh trenches dug in the afternoon.
10

September 1997 Sky & Telescope

I was hooked on astronomy, and my appetite for more data


became voracious. I wrote more letters asking for more pictures
and information. In time I moved on from the plains of Mars to
the Voyager encounters with Jupiter. Then came Saturn with its
spectacular rings and, oh, the joy of discovery! Through NASA, I
was actively exploring the solar system. With every new flyby, I
wrote more letters and received more Golden Packets by mail.
No matter if I was at college, my first job, graduate school, or on
a South American adventure I have stayed my course of exploration for 20 years, crisscrossing the solar system from Uranus
to Venus and back to Jupiter. Each letter has triggered a mountain of information and breathtaking images in response.
Today, we have more than robotic probes to inspire awe. The
Hubble Space Telescope allows us
to explore the farthest reaches of
the universe. Thanks to the World
Wide Web, I can log on to any one
of a hundred different sites and
download virtually any picture
ever taken in space! Young people
today have so much data available
at their fingertips, it amazes me
that anyone can deal with it in a
relatively coherent fashion. (Will
Internet surfers ever have the same
appreciation for their digital
downloads that I had for my highly coveted envelopes? I wonder.)
As any passionate explorer
would do, I now share the joy of
astronomy with everyone I know.
I am a teacher, and I can always
find a reason to have all my students write to NASA. From second graders to seniors, they have
all received their Golden Packets.
And if just one student gets turned on to astronomy from this
exercise, then all the letter-writing will have been worth it.
Who could have predicted that my cousin Ricks lithographs
of the Martian surface would have had such an impact on my
life? With more dazzling missions under way and planned for
the future, any one of us can be onboard, vicariously exploring, learning, and dreaming. Come to think of it, with discoveries happening at such breakneck speed, Id better get busy
Ive got letters to write!
Founder of the American Astronomy Club in So Paulo, Brazil, David
Lustick often conducts public star parties to showcase the southern
skies. He can be reached by e-mail at dlustick@eagle.aegsp.br.
Readers wishing to follow Lusticks lead should write to: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Public Services Office, Mail Stop 186-113, 4800 Oak
Grove Dr., Pasadena, CA 91109 (e-mail: newsdesk@jpl.nasa.gov).

1997 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

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