Back To Mars!

Elton John sings it ain’t the kind of place to raise your kids, but over the years quite a few nifty toys have made the nearly seven month journey to the surface of the red planet, and if all goes well this afternoon, another robotic explorer will arrive, Perseverance it is named, and it sports a spiffy space-helicopter/drone, Ingenuity, they call it,  designed specifically for the Martian atmosphere.

Just the fact that humans can send a bus-sized vehicle to a distant land at tremendous speed, then slow its approach and land it without damage is a ponderous achievement.  I read somewhere that it was akin to throwing a dart in Washington, DC, and hitting a bulls-eye somewhere in Houston.

So I will be watching later to see what happens, and without offense to the “Rocket Man” singer, I’ll probably be listening to Ziggy Stardust & The Spiders from Mars.  Seems a more cosmic groove to me.

Here’s More:  https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/02/18/science/nasa-mars-landing