Annals of Exploration–Ready to Rove: Okay, this Mars mission is starting to get interesting. Engineers at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion lab have cut the cord to Spirit, the billion dollar golf cart, and have pivoted the sucker on top of the lander (history’s most remotely controlled 3-point turn) in anticipation of driving onto the Martian surface. That maneuver is set to take place early Thursday am, and if it is successful Spirit will be ready to tour the Red planet. (If it’s not NASA will be in deep, deep doo-doo). First on the tour list will be a crater that’s about 250 meters from the lander. Why is this mission cool? Because JPL geeks get to say stuff like: “We’ll be careful as we approach. No one has ever driven up to a Martian crater before.” Spirit will examine the crater as part of its mission to determine whether there was ever water on Mars (okay, that I don’t really care much about). Then it will be off to climb a bunch of 100-meter hills a couple of miles away. NASA is making up a bunch of psuedo-scientific reasons why those hills have to be climbed, but we all know there is only one: BECAUSE THEY ARE THERE. And if all this isn’t enough fun, there’s another Rover headed toward Mars–called Opportunity (clunk..clearly, there have been severe cutbacks in NASA’s marketing department). Opportunity should land late this month, on the other side of Mars. So there is only one question I am interested in: which Rover will climb the highest hill, and own the Martian mountaineering record when all is said and done?



Rover Roll-Out: “Alright you pencil-necks. Send me on my way. I’ve got rocks to examine and hills to summit.”