Perseverance And Ingenuity!

I had planned to write more about this as I have much more to say about it, as well as describe some similar past experiences of watching planetary landings which affected me profoundly, but I’ve been quite busy lately with a mixture of OCD/anxiety, various tasks around my room, reading and helping out a friend. Anyway it would be a crime for me to not point out this groundbreaking Mars landing before the event, in case anybody is interested whom might have otherwise missed it:

https://mars.nasa.gov/mars2020/timeline/landing/watch-online/

The live coverage is starting in just a few minutes and the landing should happen at 20:55 GMT/UTC. This Mars rover mission is truly pioneering in several ways compared to the previous NASA rover which landed in 2012. It is the first NASA mission to specifically look for signs of past life. It carries a helicopter. It will record the landing sequence in unprecedented detail with video cameras and microphones. We’ll have many opportunities to see human space hardware on Mars from a third person perspective. The skycrane, the Perseverance rover and the little Ingenuity helicopter!

There is so much that’s exciting about this mission and I plan to set a bit more context for it, as well as try to get across the romance and importance of it all 😄. Space exploration can be a source of much-welcome positivity and optimism in difficult times! Especially when it goes to plan. Now I’m getting ready for the 7 minutes of terror this evening 😬.

The rover has now landed safely and sent back its first images!! Human ingenuity has succeeded yet again, and we can actually look forward to some incredible sights from Mars.

🌪