I’m sitting here with my eyes burning from sitting up half the night watching the Mars landing, sipping my coffee and pretending I actually care today about errant hyphens, but the fatigue was worth it.

I know there are people out there, possibly even some of the people reading this, who don’t understand or share my enthusiasm about this space stuff. Too many problems back here on Earth we ought to be focusing on instead, they say. What a waste of two-and-a-half-billion dollars, they say, throwing a robot at another planet when times are so tough back here. We’ve got drought and unemployment and wildfires and starving people to worry about; why should we care about going to some other planet?

Well, to those people, I’d point out that the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Hoover Dam were all built at the height of the Great Depression. Like Curiosity, they were enormous feats of engineering and they cost enormous amounts of money that could’ve been spent helping all the people who were down on their luck at that time. I’m sure many people in the 1930s said the exact same things about them that people say about space exploration now. But they went up anyhow, employing thousands during their building and giving thousands more — if not millions — something to be proud of and to inspire them in their darkness. Today, those three structures are symbols of pride for our nation. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to suggest that Curiosity may someday be seen in the same light. People who’ve fallen on tough times need something larger than themselves to think about sometimes, as an escape from the grinding anxiety of their daily lives. I think that’s much of the reason why superhero movies are so popular; why shouldn’t people find relief from their worries in the grand adventure of exploration and science as well?

Anyhow, I’m too fuzzy-headed to go much farther with that, so let me instead just point you to a couple of interesting links I’ve run across:

• First, Wired.com offers a breakdown of the instruments onboard the Mars Science Laboratory, explaining what they are, how they work, and what they’re for. The bit with the lasers is especially cool.
• You want cool? How about this… a photo of Curiosity descending beneath its parachute taken by the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Think about that: a robot space probe falling through the atmosphere of an alien world, photographed by another robot probe in orbit around that planet. And we did that. We built those things. We, those silly little hominids who not so long ago in geological time figured out that if you bang a rock against another one, you get a sharp edge, and that might be kinda useful.
• If you couldn’t stay up and watch the live feed from JPL the way I did, there are all kinds of videos to be found on YouTube. I thought this one was particularly interesting… clips from the control room are intercut with that simulation of the landing procedure, so you can get an idea of what the scientists and engineers are reacting to.
• And lastly, I couldn’t help but notice as the camera panned around the control room that things have loosened up considerably since the The Right Stuff era of skinny ties, white shirts, and uniform crew cuts… and isn’t that a grand thing? Steel-haired hippies and mohawks, oh my!

(I snagged this photo from here; not sure of its original provenance.)

And now I think another cup is in order… so very fuzzy…