When Spirit landed on Mars last month, bouncing into a perfect landing to the cheers of NASA scientists, the world did something surprising: it noticed. And I decided to take senior year calculus. It wasn’t the most thrilling decision of my life. But I’ll need a calculus course on my college applications if I want to study astrobiology after high school. Despite my reluctance to take on senioritis and math simultaneously, you could say I was inspired. I’m not the only one.