Congrats to JPL on the successful (so far) landing of the Phoenix. Interestingly (though almost certainly coincidentally), it happens on the forty-seventh anniversary of Kennedy’s speech announcing the plan to land a man on the moon by the end of the decade.
And (for what it’s worth–not much, to me, and even more certainly coincidentally) it’s the thirty-first anniversary of the initial release of Star Wars in theaters. I didn’t see it that day, but I did see it within a couple weeks. I remember being unimpressed (“the Kessel run in twelve parsecs”…please), though the effects were pretty good. But then, I was a fan of actual science fiction.
[Update late evening]
It’s worth noting that (I think) this was the first soft landing on Mars in over twenty years, since Viking. Surely someone will correct me (or nitpick me) if I’m wrong.
[Monday morning update]
OK, not exactly wrong (it has been over twenty years), but it’s thirty years. I’m pretty good at math. Arithmetic, not so much.
Data point, the ghoul may not like rebuilt leftovers.
Nice to see that NASA can still bullseye the occasional womp rat.
Rand,
Your memory is correct, both the earlier PBS program, “Phoenix Mars Mission: Ashes to Ice” (5/22){you should really have found time to watch}, and tonite’s FoxNews coverage of the landing confirmed the first soft landing since Viking.
Mike
More like 30 years , Viking landed during 1976
Mars Pathfinder – 1997?
I still count a bouncy-bouncy landing as a soft one.
A “hard landing” is better known as the kind of landing that Mars Polar had.
You know, one that leaves a widely scattered debris trail.
Boom.
Crash.
Right?
Pathfinder didn’t go boom.
That was a soft landing for the spacecraft, but not for the bouncy ball.
Has anyone noticed yet how much having in-space infrastructure helps mission? In this case it wasn’t much, only a couple of imagining satellites, but still.