Oh silly me...Oh silly us...Chasing dreams...

'Hello: A couple of months ago, when I was in England, I had a talk with a gentleman named Doug Ellison in which he told me that you had suggested the name "Ultreya" for a dark feature on the south side of Husband Hill, and that the name had caught on among a community of Mars enthusiasts on the Internet. I subsequently took a look at the online forum that Doug started, and I read some of the posts there by you and others. I wanted to let you know that while we have used our normal process for assigning a name to this feature, the name that we chose -- El Dorado -- was in part inspired by your posts.

The name was partly taken from a poem by the American poet Edgar Alan Poe that seemed particularly relevant to our current strategic situation with the rover. But I also got the sense that Ultreya had become something of a symbol of hope for future exploration for you and for others in the Internet community. And El Dorado is a name that I intended to be similar in its implications. To quote from the Wikipedia article on El Dorado: "El Dorado is also sometimes used as a metaphor to represent an ultimate prize or 'Holy Grail' that one might spend their life seeking. It could represent true love, heaven, happiness, or success. It is used sometimes as a figure of speech to represent something much sought after that may not even exist, or at least may not ever be found." To me, that sounded very similar to the meaning that you've ascribed to Ultreya.

So, I'm sorry that we didn't use your name, but I hope you'll be pleased that you helped inspire the name that we gave it. I admire the enthusiasm and the spirit of exploration with which you've been following the mission.

Best wishes,

Steve Squyres'