Friday, August 3, 2012

Mars landing to occur this Monday morning

I've been too nervous to talk about it. But now the landing for the Mars rover/science lab is imminent. I swear, I'm a wreck. The landing sequence is downright alarming -- so many things could go wrong. In fact, let's say it out loud: success seems all but impossible. Still, I've got my fingers crossed. And according to the linked article, NASA is rather confident about the mission.

As for the timing, it's going to land early Monday morning. Am I going to stay up and watch it live? I don't think so. If the landing is a bust, I'd rather hear about it in retrospect. I'd be too depressed if I watched it live and it turned into a disaster. Besides, there won't be any images from Mars until much later -- days or weeks. It will take a while for NASA to roll out the rover's abilities.

But this is very cool and if it succeeds, it will answer a lot of questions. Surely, there was life on Mars at some point. I suspect it's still there, hiding underground, and I look forward to waking up on Monday morning to read the good news. Dog, if you're listening, help NASA out on Monday, okay? Thanks.