The weather remains rather dismal. I ended up hibernating the entire night away. But at least the NASA Curiosity Rover has successfully landed on Mars!
Okay, I'm totally geeking out over the success of the Curiosity mission thus far. What made things most interesting beyond the rather ambitious mission profile was the unique payload delivery system that they devised to get Curiosity safely to the surface. And considering just how large Curiosity is compared to previous Mars probes, it really required a lot of thought. But leave it to the engineers at NASA to come up with a crazy idea that involved a parachute and a separate unit to slow its descent with a series of precisely controlled rockets. I mean come on, it makes Curiosity sound like some sort of a G.I. Joe vehicle or something.
But now that it's safely on the surface, the mission will be able to begin soon enough. I'm glad that I was awake to "witness" it, even though there wasn't exactly some sort of a live camera feed playing on CNN. Instead we all watched the men and women of mission control and got to share in the experience with them through the wonders of television. As much as I keep thinking about cutting cable again, these are the sorts of moments that are hard to ignore entirely. TV does have its uses.
Originally Tobie and I had mapped out plans for a sort of geek hangout last night in lieu of going out to O Bar or wherever. But after my rather busy day and the rather dismal weather, I ended up falling asleep shortly after arriving home. And what surprised me even more is the fact that I didn't wake up until morning.
I can't remember the last time that I had slept that long in quite a long time. I guess it just took a good day with friends and perhaps a lot less drama in my life to finally relax and reach a state of true restfulness. I'll just have to make it up to Tobie on another weekend when we can hang out and just geek out together.
In the meantime, I'll try to make the most of my afternoon before I need to have another nap before the work week begins anew tonight.
Okay, I'm totally geeking out over the success of the Curiosity mission thus far. What made things most interesting beyond the rather ambitious mission profile was the unique payload delivery system that they devised to get Curiosity safely to the surface. And considering just how large Curiosity is compared to previous Mars probes, it really required a lot of thought. But leave it to the engineers at NASA to come up with a crazy idea that involved a parachute and a separate unit to slow its descent with a series of precisely controlled rockets. I mean come on, it makes Curiosity sound like some sort of a G.I. Joe vehicle or something.
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| Hello Mars! |
Originally Tobie and I had mapped out plans for a sort of geek hangout last night in lieu of going out to O Bar or wherever. But after my rather busy day and the rather dismal weather, I ended up falling asleep shortly after arriving home. And what surprised me even more is the fact that I didn't wake up until morning.
I can't remember the last time that I had slept that long in quite a long time. I guess it just took a good day with friends and perhaps a lot less drama in my life to finally relax and reach a state of true restfulness. I'll just have to make it up to Tobie on another weekend when we can hang out and just geek out together.
In the meantime, I'll try to make the most of my afternoon before I need to have another nap before the work week begins anew tonight.
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