Raise a glass to the geeks!

I've been away from this here blog lately devoting my ever decreasing work blogging time to following the Phoenix Mission to our solar system next door neighbor planet Mars. I will never tire of seeing shit like this work and stand in awe of the guys and gals who make it happen. I enjoy every little bit of news no matter how minute in detail. 10 months through space at 17,000 miles an hour to a parachute/retrorocket slowed decent and touchdown. Just amazing.

I'll never be able to understand the math and biology that goes into and results from our space exploration beyond a layman's comprehension, but I experience the same wonderment that I see in my kids eye when she reads her space books and watches her Universe program. It also reinvigorates my optimism on all fronts by providing proof that, if we are capable of making something like Phoenix happen, no problem in front of us is unsolvable. We put a lander on Saturn's moon Titan for Christ's sake, do you have any idea how fucking far away that is from us!

I know if I sat down at their lunch table and started asking questions they'd probably make inside jokes at my expense and generally goof on me, but I don't care. I'd still buy'em as many virgin margaritas as they could handle and hoist'em high in praise of their work.

Sorry to leave you, but I've got to check and see if all the prep tests went okay for the robotic arm retraction...



This is a picture taken by the Huygens probe of the surface of Titan. Titan has seas of liquid methane and it even rains methane.

This is a ariel photo taken from the the Huygen's Probe as it decended through Titan's atmosphere. Check out the methane river against the mountainous shoreline. It looks like any point north of New City in the Hudson Valley.