What a piece of work is man. How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty — and we’ll forget for a moment the local political stupidity in this country, to join with the rest of the human race and acknowledge the great achievement of last Thursday, when the Perseverance Rover landed on Mars. The footage from that monumental moment was just released and here it is.
The shades of Ray Bradbury and H.G. Welles are among us and smiling. Our visionaries have long perceived this day and now we see it come to pass. It won’t be too long before a member of our species lands and walks on our neighboring planet.
Savor the victory of this moment. And because my mind never strays from politics for long, let me share a quote with you: “The difference between why things work on Mars better than they do in Texas is because scientists are in charge of Mars and Republicans are in charge of Texas.”
If you’ve never seen the Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, here’s a clip. The story is that various expeditions to Mars were doomed because Mars was already inhabited and I won’t spoil the plot.
If you’re going anywhere, you have to go there first in your imagination.
Send men to the moon, and rovers to Mars.
But can’t let the Feds mess with the electrical grid and markets!!. That would be radical socialism and commie stuff!!! – Tea Party, GOP, Trumpists, Dominionists, and other assorted nuts and aholes.
Weird how some folks love deregulation and then the electorate forgets. Saving and Loans (oops, mostly Texas y’all). Check. Economic meltdown in 2008. Check. & ERCOT covered Texas. TBD.
There is still no reckoning with COVID. ie Trump and Fools are still not in jail. Heck the 1/6 Coup is still ongoing. Well, major networks still allowing asshats on TV denying election results.
But. Big but. Still early in the process. And folks can multitask. Like any yardwork. Got to clear out the big things first. Make some trails. Then start cleaning up little by little. The remaining weeds really stick out. And you got to plant some new things and then nurture. Water and feed. And get dirt between your toes, fingers and teeth (damn wind). Note: I never threw leaves. I “landfill” the organic matter (no composting). So taking the analogy or metaphor (whatevs)… got to put some folks in jail and take money & regulate (new laws). Little by little. And then keep going. From top to bottom. A lot of nails. Need lots of hammers.
Yeah, when stuff goes sideways in Texas, your senator should go vacationing outside the country.
Not like that commie AOC raising $5 million to help the people there!
Freedom baby!
The correct word is HISTORIC, not HISTORICAL.
Historic: famous or important in history, or potentially so
Historical: of or concerning to history; belonging to the past, not the present
Ursula, thanks so much for this! Absolutely breath-taking! I was just about standing and cheering with the folks at NASA when the rover touched down. My inner child found it thrilling (and yes, I loved Ray Bradbury). I loved Isaac Asimov too, even if he was a dirty old man! And if you’ve never read it, you might enjoy Robert Heinlein’s “The Green Hills of Earth”, I’m pretty sure you’ve read “Stranger in a Strange Land”. I’ve fallen years behind in reading but when I was a lot younger, it was about all I did, when I wasn’t playing the piano.
Going waaaay back to when I was in school back in the 1950s, the BBC had a weekly radio series called ‘Journey into Space’ which ran for several seasons. In the final one there was a transplanted colony of humans on Mars who were conditioned to attack Earth and their anthem was ‘The cool green hills of Earth’
Damn. I watched this live last week and was so moved that I cried. I just did all over again. The technical challenges of building a machine that can survive the launch, the trip, the firery journey down through that atmosphere, and THEN have the programming that would allow it to fly a one ton vehicle down to a soft landing that will allow all that complex equipment to do the incredible experiments that will follow (and indications are that the checkout is going fine!) is I dare say a feat equal to our being able to send actual people to the moon and return them to the earth. Granted, technology is far more advanced now. Back then we had to invent entire new materials and technology but we had to do at least some of that here. The thing is, a true soft landing was crucial and unlike the first lunar landing where Armstrong had to take over and fly manually when he & Aldrin saw they were headed into a field of large boulders THIS is a case where the machine had to be able to look at the terrain and adjust on it’s own as needed. A freaking ONE TON research vehicle was set down in a good spot without any direct human intervention in real time. Set down gently enough that it’s methodically going through its checklist and sending back reports that (so far) everything is in working order. It was an incredible achievement. And the best part is yet to come! Just think of what that robot is going to send back to us in the next couple of years!
HiRISE, on the Mars Orbiter, got a pic that shows where the various pieces landed.
https://www.uahirise.org/releases/perseverance/m2020-hardware-labels.jpg
WHOOT yes… but it makes me feel really old .. I never saw any MartianChronicles .. I read them all a jillion times. Bradbury and my fav Heinlein and newest Spectaular MARS series. Red, Blue, Green MARS .. Stephanie ??
OOPS Kim Stanley Robinson ..MARS TRILOGY a must read for Sci Fi fans, if you haven’t.. We colonize and terraform Mars.