RSS- Black voters may have cast Virginia ballots in 1864
- The 2024 federal fiscal year ended. $35.46 trillion in debt. A $1.83 trillion deficit. $1.13 trillion in gross interest payments. The presidential candidates are silent.
- On the Lunatic Fringe
- Mars declared unsafe for humans to live as scientists explain why it’d never work
- “Does Russia face military collapse by 2026? Inside Ukraine’s strategic assessment”
- Open thread – 28 October 2024
- Israel launches airstrikes on Iran
- “US says evidence shows North Korea has troops in Russia for Ukraine war”
- Moldova’s Sandu secures knife-edge EU vote win
- “Leaked documents show US intelligence on Israel’s plans to attack Iran, sources say”
The video footage of the parachute deployment, heat shield ejection, sky crane maneuver and touchdown were worth waiting for. Extraordinary to see recognizable features like sand/dust dunes during the descent and then the rocket crane viewed from Perseverance safely on the surface. We gotta get people there next. Sic itur ad astra.
I was going to leave my comment there, but in the light of your most recent post I feel moved to follow it up. If we do remain deaf to the soft words of the summer grasses and destroy our Paradise here on Earth, the irony of ironies would be that the pinnacle of our civilization’s achievement – an autonomous Mars rover – would live on. Perseverance would continue to go about its business, oblivious to its creators’ fate, diligently collecting samples from the barren surface in the search for signs of life. Samples never to be retrieved. Our epitaph.
Perhaps in another million years a more resilient civilization might send a probe to our shattered world and rejoice in the discovery that it was once populated with “intelligent” life. I wish I were gifted with the ability to turn these thoughts into a poem.
Such an achievement deserves more than a single comment, the creativity and technical excellence is in the finest tradition of those who created the Apollo missions. A thought provoking posting Barbara Ann, thoughts to ruminate on over time.