Ahhh yes...time for a little story about Mars!

Here's a shot of the Phoenix lander heading thru the martian atmosphere, about to do some sciencey crap. The shot was taken by the Mars Reconnissance Orbiter - which makes this photo super-duper cool, cause it's the first time a spaceprobe has been photographed landing ON ANOTHER PLANET! Thas purtty dope meng.


Anyhoo - over here is the mission homepage (with the link direct to the recent images - it's only been there for a day) but it's pretty much worth lookin' at. So anywise, not too long ago I went to JPL for an open house, which had some uber-cool stuff - and ended up talking to a guy who was...what the hell was he? Something like, "I'm the manager of onboard systems operations." (That's a really rough guess...) The guy was such an awesome geek - like a true rocket-scientist, he was more than happy to talk about stuff - and I was more than happy to ask questions and listen to the answers (which was also true of the guys who worked with the (two) Mars rovers that are already there, and the guy who was showing off the next-gen rover that was a bad-assed robot. (And when I say bad-assed robot, I dooo know what I'm talking about) Well, to get back to my story, I asked the Phoenix dude what his favorite tool or sensor was on his space probe. He responded with a giant grin, and saying he had two. One was the claw arm which would dig thru the martian soil, and the other was a sensor which would analize the samples (which he/they hoped would have ice) that would be dug up by the claw, and hopefully detect life, which, he continued, would be really exciting.

To this I responded, "Unless it's a virus that turns humans into zombies, and we can never go there!" He paused for a second, processing what I just said, and then we all cracked up. I wished him luck, and I'm sure he's having the time of his life right now. Anyhoo - here's a couple of pic's of the moment.















(Both snaps by Victoria!)

Well, that's my anecdote about the Phoenix. I have another space-probe story right here which is pretty amusing. If you want the short version...here's the most important bits in a short video.