Vision

The first meaning of "vision" is sight. We have seen Mars for thousands of years as a red star. Later, we looked through a telescope at it, discovering many things. And recently, we have sent many missions to it, bringing our vision of Mars even more into focus. This rover will be no different. It will shed much light. There is a second meaning, though, which is a deeper sort of seeing: seeing into the future. It describes this rover particularly, for in caching its samples, it is looking ahead, to a mission that may bring them back. It may be soon, or perhaps not so soon. But this mission looks ahead, trusting that someday, a new mission will return to finish what it started. We often labor for the future, though we may not be there to see the work completed.