Phoenix lands undamaged on Mars!

I’m a bit disappointed in myself for not posting anything on this earlier. Most of you already know by now that on Sunday, NASA’s Phoenix probe successfully performed a rocket-assisted landing on Mars’ northern arctic plains.  It was the sixth successful attempted (of twelve total, worldwide) Mars landing.  Phoenix is a joint project of a number of international universities and space agencies, and its primary goal is to analyze the water ice covering much of the ground near Mars’ north pole.  In doing so, it will help researchers look for evidence of past or present Martian life.  I think we are on the right track with robotic exploration, as the ethical complexities involved in manned missions to Mars (at least in this technological era) are very limiting.

Anyway, the landing occurred at 23:53:44 UTC; that’s the Earth-received time.  That means the time that mission control received the first radio signals.  The landing really took place 15 minutes and 20 seconds before that, which is the amount of time it takes radio signals from Mars to reach Earth.  Forget what you know about relativity; Earth and Mars are too close together in space, and the relative speed between them is too tiny a fraction of the speed of light for relativity to matter in this case.  As far as we need be concerned, the Earth-received time minus 15m 20s is simultaneous to Mars time.  That’s one of the dilemmas that any future human Mars explorers would face: it would take over a half hour, at least, to receive any reply to a message radioed to Earth.  Keep in mind too that Mars’ and Earth’s orbits around the sun are not synchronous; the half hour delay is the best of scenarios!

A bit more info: Phoenix was launched on August 4, 2007 atop a Delta II rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida.  It took nearly ten months to complete the 680 million kilometer journey to Mars.  How about a picture of the launch, you ask?  Why, I’ve got one for you right here:

And so, dear readers, space exploration marches on!  I know it’s perhaps just a little unlikely, but I’m still crossing my fingers that I’ll be able to land on the moon before I die.  I know that may seem to contradict what I said a moment ago about robotic exploration being the right track, but things may change for the better.  We may discover safer, less expensive ways to escape Earth’s gravity, and better portable protection from solar radiation.  I don’t even care if it’s not really all that safe.  If I’m 45 or older, and I’m offered a seat on a moon shuttle, you better believe I’m going.  Hell, I’d go to Mars, too.  Apart from the obvious atmospheric differences, the terrain doesn’t look too different from the Black Rock Desert where I’ve camped at Burning Man several times now

The first image of Mars’ horizon sent by Phoenix:

The Black Rock Desert, Black Rock City, NV:

Until next time, kiddies.  Keep watching the skis… I mean, keep watching the skies!