[Mb-civic] Let's Shoot for Quality Teachers, Not for Mars

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Let's Shoot for Quality Teachers, Not for Mars 
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By Margaret Wertheim
Margaret Wertheim is the "Quark Soup" science columnist for the L.A. Weekly and the author of "The Pearly Gates of Cyberspace: A History of Space From Dante to the Internet" (Norton, 1999).

March 7 2005

In 1609, the German astronomer Johannes Kepler completed a story that is often considered the earliest work of science fiction. Titled "Somnium," or "Dream," Kepler's charmingly bizarre tale describes a trip to the moon by a young Icelander named Duracotus and his mother, Fiolxhilde, a lady who dabbles in magic and communes with spirits. It is one of these beings who transports the pair to our celestial neighbor by sheer force of its will. But if the journey smacks of the supernatural, the moon itself, on their arrival, is very much within the natural order. Indeed, the purpose of Kepler's tale was to describe the lunar orb as a real physical world governed by empirical laws of science. 

The complete article can be viewed at:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-wertheim7mar07,0,1923700.story 

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