Althouse: Get your craft to Mars.

May 26, 2008

Get your craft to Mars.

"The spacecraft Phoenix landed safely on Mars yesterday, making a hazardous soft landing on the planet's far north with all its scientific systems apparently intact and ready to begin an intensive new search for life beyond Earth."

Free associating:

16 comments:

Ron said...: I think of AA Mahrs "Pump up the Volume!" ("Mars...needs...women"); 5/26/08, 3:13 PM
rhhardin said...: I liked it better when they were confused about English units.

Do we divide by 32 or not? Always a problem.; 5/26/08, 4:32 PM
vbspurs said...: We come in Peace! We come in Peace! Ack Ack

Seriously, though, awesome free-association Arnie video and all -- this was a great triumph for NASA, and all of us who love Space Exploration.

Ironically, I'm reading Dan Brown's anti-NASA "Deception Point", and I feel ever more that he's the literary world's greatest jackoff.

Go NASA!

Cheers,
Victoria; 5/26/08, 4:51 PM
AllenS said...: "There goes the neighborhood."

--Local Martian; 5/26/08, 5:19 PM
AllenS said...: "One person's soft landing, is another person's invasion."

--Local Martian's Democratic Party Chairman neighbor.; 5/26/08, 5:32 PM
AllenS said...: "They're here for the oil."

--Local Martian's bumper sticker.; 5/26/08, 5:33 PM
Crimso said...: One of my favorite bumper stickers (is this the wrong thread?): "Earth First! We'll strip mine the other planets later."; 5/26/08, 6:10 PM
Steve M. Galbraith said...: After watching that I think I got a toomuh.

"It's not a toomuh."

The hell it isn't.; 5/26/08, 6:18 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: I totally recall that.

I keep hoping Spirit or Opportunity will find Beagle 2 -- score!; 5/26/08, 7:38 PM
Beth said...: Am I alone in thinking how cool this is? The landing involved racing into Mars' atmosphere at 12,000 MPH and slowing to 5 MPH to land. WTF?????; 5/26/08, 10:31 PM
Kevin said...: I read Dan Brown's "Deception Point" what I recall aside from the general ignorance of all things military (he thinks "Top Gun" was about the Air Force) is super dumb plot element involving some mid-grade civilian functionary, not even in the chain of command, having complete control of a Delta Force team that unhesitatingly carries out his orders to murder tons of Americans, including famous celebrity scientists.; 5/26/08, 11:00 PM
Anonymous said...: I don't know about sending Aahnald to Mars, but by my rough estimate, this trip to Mars will have used enough energy to give Becky Bob-Waksberg and all the other people living at the Sustainability House at Oberlin 45-minute hot showers for the next 97 years, not to mention free fuel for their SUV's for a century. You know, those are the environmentally-committed students at middle-of-nowhere Oberlin mentioned in the next post.

I also suggest that when they leave campus for the summer (and when they come back in the fall) that they emulate my wife's great-great grandmother, and push a handcart 1100 miles across the prarie. Lots of footprints in that, just not carbon ones.

Why are we spending all this money going to Mars when college students need showers? I can tell you, having shared Red Line cars with Harvard, Tufts, Emerson, etc. students, that I am perfectly willing to give up any amount of rocket fuel just so the Becky Bob-Waksbergs of this world spend more than 4 minutes in the shower.

Mars will remain cold and dry for a very long time. Sorry you can't say the same for the 19-year-old in the next seat.; 5/26/08, 11:23 PM
vbspurs said...: OT: Director, Sydney Pollack, has died. He was 73.

One of those rare directors who could actually act too, and very well, he's been felled by the cancer which had been diagnosed 10 months ago.

Ironically given our Althouse discussion, he was the original director of "Recount", but had to hand the project over to Jay Roach (Austin Powers, Meet the Fockers).

Hmm, I wondered why there were SO many A-list actors for one simple HBO series. Now I wonder if they had been signed on given the fact he would have been directing it, his first effort since "The Interpreter" in 2005.

I guess most people will cite "Out of Africa" as his greatest work. I personally liked "Tootsie".

First Dick, now Pollack. RIP.

Cheers,
Victoria; 5/27/08, 2:55 AM
Tully said...: The protests over our ongoing imperialism for oil have already begun.; 5/27/08, 3:19 AM
knox said...: Becky Bob-Waksberg

this is totally a Tom Wolfe-esque name.; 5/27/08, 7:56 AM
knox said...: Oh no, I just read Victoria's post about Sydney Pollack! Tootsie's one of my all-time faves. There's lots of fascinating stuff about the interaction/conflict between Pollack and Dustin Hoffman while making the movie on the 25th-anniversary dvd.

RIP, Sydney.; 5/27/08, 8:04 AM