Monday, November 26, 2018

"Bagging Solars" -- On Mars, Right Now -- Is Insight...


All systems are nominal on the lithe-bodied, copper colored lander, now resting easy on the flat belly of Elysium Planitia. And so, the long-ago miner in me. . . largely left in the sands of decades, past. . . is grinning ear to ear, on a frigidly snow covered evening -- in the steel and glass canyons, of the Chi.

It will be a few months before the drilling and hammering is fully underway, but tonight -- we are in a perfect position to do everything we came to do. The solar arrays have deployed, and are recharging the base's batteries as I type this, under a Martian afternoon sun. Miner. . . on. Here's the latest, from NASA | JPL:

. . . .NASA's InSight has sent signals to Earth indicating that its solar panels are open and collecting sunlight on the Martian surface. NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter relayed the signals, which were received on Earth at about 5:30 p.m. PST (8:30 p.m. EST). Solar array deployment ensures the spacecraft can recharge its batteries each day. Odyssey also relayed a pair of images showing InSight's landing site.

"The InSight team can rest a little easier tonight now that we know the spacecraft solar arrays are deployed and recharging the batteries," said Tom Hoffman, InSight's project manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, which leads the mission. "It's been a long day for the team. But tomorrow begins an exciting new chapter for InSight: surface operations and the beginning of the instrument deployment phase. . . ."


So it goes -- even as the most repugnant bits of our elected leadership (a "waddling crime spree", that guy) fires tear gas canisters at homeless babies in diapers, and their mommas, while they are still on the other side of the border. . . at least this bit of science is going flawlessly.

And (just a hunch, here) if these same corps of scientists can throw a basketball from half court in LA, and get nothing but net, inside Madison Square Garden, while travelling 34,000 miles an hour, shouldn't we accept that they are right about. . . [checks notes] global climate change? I think so, Mr. Trump. Onward.

The masthead for this evening:



नमस्ते

No comments: