ACSM Bulletin | October 2011 | #253
Powerful emotions, bleeding-edge technology
Both are amply represented in this fall issue of the ACSM Bulletin. Ten years have passed since the U.S. was attacked on our own soil. As a nation, we have strived to remove the ugliness from our consciousness and burn into it a lasting remembrance of the heroic people—firefighters, first responders, ordinary citizens—who bore the brunt of that atrocity. The National 9/11 Memorials in New York, in Shanksville, Pa., and at the Pentagon, are testimony of love and respect, but also of the art and science—including the art and science of surveying and mapping—that went into erecting them. The latter part of 2011 has also been made memorable by natural disasters that surprised (the earthquake in Virginia felt along the East Coast all the way in Rhode Island) and gravely endangered (the Texas fires). And then, we had the old NASA satellite fall out of the sky! We are still searching for some pieces of it. But the October 2011 Bulletin is not confined to "internal affairs" only; we have some great international stories in it, describing how our profession is helping improve people's lives beyond our shores.