I flew back to California on Friday evening, but decided to take a blogbreak for the weekend, because we had a lot of things to do to recover from Christmas and prepare for a possible move in the next couple months. However, Keith Cowing apparently decided that I didn’t deserve any time off, and berated me in comments to this post for not congratulating JPL for their successful Mars landing this weekend.

As I said in the comments section, no one should expect to come here for the latest in space science, even when I am in full posting mode, let alone when I’m on break. It’s not an area in which I’m anywhere near as interested or knowledgable as some other people, particularly when it comes to Mars. My focus is, and will remain, space policy, particularly with regard to manned spaceflight.

But congratulations to JPL anyway, for a job well done. Mars has been a tough nut to crack, as the apparent recent loss of Beagle shows, and the US has, so far, been the only space power with any notable success.