Well, It Took a While...
But *I* finally made it to MARS.
(Move over Buck Rogers)
And in spite of high fuel costs, I managed to get pretty good mileage.
But the best part is, I really never left the confines of THIS planet in the proceess.
Talk about the ultimate "vicarious" adventure, eh?
Sure beats Six Flags...especially with no lines to stand in, no parking woes, and no overpriced concessions.
Here's the link for the whole story:
http://www.planetary.org/news/2008/0525_Phoenix_Arrives_on_Mars_with_Flawless.html
NASA's Phoenix Spacecraft Lands At Martian Arctic Site
May 25, 2008
Phoenix has landed on Mars. After traveling for 10 months on a 422-million-mile route, the spacecraft landed right on time in the northern arctic plains of Mars, at 68 degrees north, near the polar cap, just before 5 pm Pacific Daylight Time (PDT). And the first images are already in.
The signal confirming Phoenix's arrival on the surface of Mars came into NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at 4:53 pm Pacific Daylight Time / 7:53 pm EDT / 11:53 pm UTC. The landing actually happened about 15 minutes earlier on Mars, but at the current distance between Mars and Earth, about 172 million miles, it takes 15 minutes for the radio signal confirming the spacecraft's arrivial to get "home."
About two hours after confirmation came through that Phoenix landed, the engineering and terrain images the team instructed the spacecraft to take came into the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the University of Arizona Phoenix Science Operations Center.
They show the solar arrays fully deployed and some of the patterned arctic terrain around Mars' north pole.
Phoenix joins NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, on the surface.
Phoenix's entry, descent, and landing -- or the "seven minutes of terror" -- as it's been called, looked to be textbook all the way down. The Phoenix flight operations team was able to maintain the signal of the spacecraft all the way down to the surface, as they had hoped they would be able to do.
The spacecraft, it was reported, landed tilted at one-quarter of a degree. In other words, it appears to have been a near flawless landing.
Could it have possibly gone any better?
"Not in my dreams," smiled Barry Goldstein, Phoenix project manager of JPL.
Phoenix is about to become the world's first mission to make direct measurements of water on another planet and the first to dig below the surface of the Martian arctic and sample water-ice.
"We have to make sure the spacraft is healthy, but by gosh, it's landed in a place where it's almost horziontal to the surface, tilted a quarter of a degree," enthused Peter Smith, principal investigator from the University of Arizona, just after the landing. "It's not on a rock. It's on a nice flat place, very safe and happy."
"This is not a trip to grandma's house. Putting a spacecraft safely on Mars is hard and risky," said Ed Weiler, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Internationally, fewer than half the attempts have succeeded."
On board Phoenix is a special message from Earth --a silica-glass DVD provided by The Planetary Society that contains a quarter-million names and a collection of Mars-related literature, art, and audio called Visions of Mars.
The disk, designed to last hundreds of years, is sent with the hope that future human explorers may one day find the message.
And you guessed it...I'm one OF those 250,000 names that has made it to the red planet.
Even have my own certificate to prove it!
So if any of happen to be in the "neighborhood"...stop on by and look me up.
I'll keep the light on.
(FYI- bring long underwear)