One Down One To Go Go Go!

July 29, 2023July 27, 2023 / animar64 / Leave a comment

WP Prompters ask: If you won two free plane tickets, where would you go?

First of all, except for a couple of great spins on the slot machines in Vegas I’ve never won a ‘prize’ in MY ENTIRE LIFE. So this prompt is a little hard to imagine. But if you want me to dream big I would want to win tickets to Mars on a NASA approved Rocket Ship.

In a way me and my dog, Hamish Macbeth, are already there-I submitted our names to NASA and our names were etched onto a microchip with 10million other names and sent to Mars in 2020

But if we could “go back” for real and in the flesh and visit our Robot Friends, Curiosity, Perseverance and that Spunky little Bot, Ingenuity, that’s where we would go in a heart beat- we would go to Mars.

Enhanced color image of NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter was taken by the Mastcam-Z instrument aboard Perseverance on April 16, 2023

This selfie was taken by NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover on Feb. 26, 2020 (the 2,687th Martian day, or sol, of the mission). The crumbling rock layer at the top of the image is the Greenheugh Pediment, which Curiosity climbed soon after taking the image.

NASA’s Perseverance Mars rover took a selfie with several of the 10 sample tubes it deposited at a sample depot it is creating within an area of Jezero Crater nicknamed “Three Forks.” Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

Postcards From Mars

Curiosity’s ‘Postcard’ of ‘Marker Band Valley

ALOHA PUPPERS BOL YOUR PAL HAMISH MACBETH

Jemma and friend checking out Mission Control- she likes science and driving really fast:

One-liner Wednesday – I Walked On Your Face!

July 29, 2020July 29, 2020 / animar64 / Leave a comment

Prompt: Linda G Hill’s One Liner Wednesday

Mars has been flown by, orbited, smacked into, radar examined, and rocketed onto, as well as bounced upon, rolled over, shoveled, drilled into, baked and even blasted.

Still to come: Mars being stepped on.

— Buzz Aldrin

I guess there’s more then one way to say ‘ go team ‘ but Buzz said it best.

I’ve included this clip- it does not mentions Mars, but because it echoes the quote and reminds us who could end up ” stepping on Mars’ face”

I have no clear picture in my mind about who that person is, I just hope they are as cool as Buzz.

From The NASA Website:

Perseverance carries instruments and technology that will pave the way for human missions to the Moon and Mars.

The Terrain-Relative Navigation system, which autonomously helps the rover avoid hazards during landing, and the Mars Science Laboratory Entry, Descent, and Landing Instrumentation 2 (MEDLI2) sensor suite, which gathers crucial data during the journey through the Martian atmosphere, will help future human missions land more safely and with larger payloads on other worlds.

Perseverance also has features that will help astronauts once they’re on the surface of another world: improved self-driving smarts for more efficient travel and the Mars Environmental Dynamics Analyzer (MEDA) instrument suite, which will provide key information about weather, climate, and dust. Meanwhile, the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) technology demonstration aims to produce oxygen from Mars’ carbon dioxide atmosphere, demonstrating a way future explorers might produce oxygen for rocket propellant as well as for breathing.

Let’s Go!

July 28, 2020 / animar64 / Leave a comment

From The NASA Website:

A placard commemorating NASA’s “Send Your Name to Mars” campaign was installed on the Perseverance Mars rover on March 16, 2020, at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Three fingernail-sized chips affixed to the upper-left corner of the placard feature the names of 10,932,295 people who participated. They were individually stenciled onto the chips by electron beam, along with the essays of the 155 finalists in NASA’s “Name the Rover” contest. Liftoff aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas V 541 rocket is targeted for mid-July of 2020 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. NASA’s Launch Services Program, based at Kennedy, is managing the launch.

You can watch the Perseverance Launch as well as briefings HERE

So all kidding aside, me and my dog are going to Mars.

Sort of.

Take A Notion

May 28, 2020May 28, 2020 / animar64 / 2 Comments

FOWC with Fandango — Notion

It’s an odd feeling, but since some of us went into lockdown / quarantine I feel like the world is way more crowded then before- yes even though the streets are empty.

Well, where I live there are a lot of Republicans around so the streets aren’t that empty ( especially around Walmart ) and most of them do not wear facemasks because FREEDUMBS!

Anyway, it’s like I don’t have enough elbow room.

So as I was thinking about today’s prompt ” Notion ” I got it into my head that a nice one way trip to Mars with my dog Hamish might be the answer.

Besides Hamish Macbeth’s birthday is in July and the ticket is good for travel in July 2020- and if we can suspend reality for a mo’, it would make an awesome gift.

What do you think?

Just as an interesting factoid, Mars has been Coronavirus free for 4.603 billion years.

See you there?