Surely We're Not the Only Ones!

[nebula5]

On Sunday, Greg and I were running around working on cleaning out his dad's apartment at the assisted living home (Joe Sardo passed away on May 17). We had a few other errands to do that day, but cut a couple of them short in order to make it home on time to watch the NASA channel's coverage of the Phoenix landing

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[centaurg]

I was preoccupied, but tuned into the Web broadcast at the last riveting minute, listening to the call-outs of altitude and finally relaxing as it became obvious that the lander was slowing to a controlled touchdown--fifteen minutes ago. Then happily hanging on for the next few hours as the pictures flowed in.

The MRO images of the descending lander underneath its parachute, especially with the backdrop of the not-so-distant crater, were just as amazing.

Yes, the general public impression seems to be underwhelmed. And we don't even have a lunar colony yet. But the programs go on however slowly, and there's more to look forward to even in the near future. I think the next lander is a RTG-powered rover that'll look like a Humvee next to the long-lived MERs; with any luck it'll work for years and cover hundreds of miles, even collecting an occasional interesting sample for a future return flight yet to be physically built.

Looking back: we've come a long way from our childhood when all we had were a few fuzzy telescope photos of Mars and the other planets. Looking ahead: there's lots more to come--we just have to live long enough to enjoy it!