Yes, I am a geek about Space as well.

You'd think with computers and photography, that my life would be full of cool things to keep me busy. I have always loved Space and Astronomy, even though I am too tall to ever get up in a ship (damned short people). I was heartbroken when the Challenger blew up, and devastated when Discovery burned up on re-entry. There have been many tradegies, but there have also been some major discoveries and spectacular images captured as we stretch our technological fingers into the cosmos.

I follow anything we (earthlings) send to Mars. The first successful flyby was done by Mariner 4 in 1964-- years before we even set foot on the moon. 21 images, in 1964. Mariner 6 and 7, 5 years later captured over 200 additional images. In 71, we landed something on there but only got 20 seconds of 'lander' data, even though the orbiter portion of the mission had 8 months of good data. When I was 4, we finally landed something on Mars and were able to get a good connection to it. The Viking 1 lander made it all worth while. Viking 2 followed up shortly and was also a resounding success sending back over 16,000 images as well as other experiments.

Then, nothing for a while. The Soviets tried a few in 88, but either missed the planet -- or lost the orbiter. The US failed the Mars observer, which just stopped communicating in 93, three days before it was set to start its approach to the red planet. The Pathfinder mission was only supposed to do a little bit of looking around, but it ended up lasting 5 times longer than the warranty. And then in 2003, we landed a pair of rovers on the planet, and began our first 6 wheelin' adventure from another planet. There's a first right there.

But it's the latest landing that has me really watching. The Phoenix Mars Lander has made it, and it ready to sit on one place and just dig until it too dies or looses communication.


I think in this lifetime, we will be sending someone there -- hopefully a team.

** http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/log/