Simply Saturn

This evening the Cassini space probe will try to put itself in orbit around the giant planet Saturn. We'll know sometime early tomorrow whether it succeeded. During the next several years it will relay info about the ringed planet— and even send a little ship down to one of Saturn's moons. The moon Titan has a thick atmosphere, and scientists suspect it could be similar to Earth millions of years ago.

Space ship goes to another planet, pokes around, sends back cool pictures.

This is a great relief. I would much rather think about Cassini at Saturn, than about the provisional Iraqi government, Saddam Hussein's perp walk tomorrow, train wrecks killing people, and kiddie porn on the web.

We are hard up for good news, and mired in bad.

I'm thankful for this space adventure put together by the best minds on our planet. It seems so simple, so un-evil, compared to so many other topics of the day.

Brad Messer, commentary, KTSA.