Not often you get to watch a historic event like this. If you are one of the people who were in office and not following the event, you should just die. You are not living, but existing.
Yes. It took a lot of money for this.
Yes. There are other big problems the world is facing.
So What ?
Does it mean that you stop dreaming ? For this is nothing but a huge boost to one's imagination.
My earliest recollection of Mars is from an encylopedia on the Solar system of a barren red planet. This was followed by fantastic novels like Edgar Rice Burroughs's Princess of Mars books ( recently made into a movie - John Carter ). I was hooked to science fiction - it was probably the first scifi book I read. Years go by , but this morning's events brought back all those memories. I know they are fictitious, but they add to the sense of wonder.
The landing was being live streamed by NASA on their website to millions around the world as well as a few News channels like CNN. As the lander went into the final descent the only information from it was a 'hearbeat' - like a continuous pinging that 'all iz well'. Finally came the first image - a tiny 64x64 pixel image in which the wheel could just be seen ! Wow! Like someone mentioned on twitter - it was back to the days of dialup - but considering the space between the Earth and Mars - a feat of technology !
The journey itself took 9 moths - so for those born today, you know what happened 9 months back ;)
Next we expect to see some great images being sent to the Earth. The objective of the mission is to see if life ever existed on Mars.
Now, if you are interested here are some links:
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| A good resolution image from Curiosity after landing (c) NASA |
Yes. There are other big problems the world is facing.
So What ?
Does it mean that you stop dreaming ? For this is nothing but a huge boost to one's imagination.
My earliest recollection of Mars is from an encylopedia on the Solar system of a barren red planet. This was followed by fantastic novels like Edgar Rice Burroughs's Princess of Mars books ( recently made into a movie - John Carter ). I was hooked to science fiction - it was probably the first scifi book I read. Years go by , but this morning's events brought back all those memories. I know they are fictitious, but they add to the sense of wonder.
The landing was being live streamed by NASA on their website to millions around the world as well as a few News channels like CNN. As the lander went into the final descent the only information from it was a 'hearbeat' - like a continuous pinging that 'all iz well'. Finally came the first image - a tiny 64x64 pixel image in which the wheel could just be seen ! Wow! Like someone mentioned on twitter - it was back to the days of dialup - but considering the space between the Earth and Mars - a feat of technology !
The journey itself took 9 moths - so for those born today, you know what happened 9 months back ;)
Next we expect to see some great images being sent to the Earth. The objective of the mission is to see if life ever existed on Mars.
Now, if you are interested here are some links:
- NASA's mars page with all the images etc.
- Wikipedia Mars
- Project Gutenberg for Novels by E.R.Burroughs
Sci-Fi books on Mars, sure: Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
ReplyDelete-S#
That is Mythology, not Sci-Fi
ReplyDeleteAlso - as you can see from the picture above - there is no Beer, Porn or ESPN on Mars, so men are definitely not from there ( quote taken from https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=4026102244686 ;) )