AL GORE'S HAPPY HOLIDAY

By Michael Duffy/Washington

Shortly before 7 P.M., as most Washingtonians staked out picnic areas on the Mall ahead of the capital's annual fireworks display, Vice President Al Gore logged on to a computer in his home to view some pyrotechnics of the digital kind. Gore had been following Pathfinder's progress all day. And now he was seeing the first images, sent by E-mail to a few top officials before they were made public. The color mosaic of the rocky Martian landscape as seen from Pathfinder so excited Gore that he rushed back to his White House office after the fireworks to download still more pictures. It was close to midnight before he went home.

"What a wonderful way to celebrate the Fourth of July," he said in an interview with TIME the next morning. Pathfinder's mission could hold invaluable lessons for mankind's own survival, added Gore. "If life disappeared there, then why? If life still exists there, then what lessons does it hold for us? We need to learn more about the mysteries of evolution." He noted that the landing comes not long after the stunning discovery that life may once have existed on Mars. "And that makes Pathfinder and these 10 missions even more important and timely than we could have imagined when they were first planned."

The fundamental focus of these missions, said Gore, is Earth--how to live and survive here better. As Pathfinder and subsequent missions unfold, he said, "we are likely to experience an emotional and spiritual impact not unlike the one which accompanied that first picture of Earth rising from the moon's horizon a generation ago."

--By Michael Duffy/Washington