January 4th - Rover Lands On Mars

On this day, in 2004, the NASA rover, Spirit, safely landed on Mars. Its mission, which it chose to accept, was to look at rocks, enjoy rocks, promote rocks, and sample delicious rock-based recipes. It achieved this mission and so much more, including looking remarkably like Johnny-5 from the mildly successful movies "Short Circuit" and "Short Circuit 2'.

Spirit and its twin rover, Opportunity, were solar-powered, six wheeled monsters that towered a mighty 1.5m in the air. Their cyborg rover bodies sat on a rocker-bogie system, which Elvis designed in the late sixties. The six independently-driven wheels gave the rover a maximum speed of 50mm/s. But this hair-raising speed was too much for the scaredy-cat NASA folk, so the rover was normally driven at about one fifth this speed.

The primary mission for Spirit lasted for 90 sols. A sol is one martian day, which is almost exactly the same length as an Earth day, so they could have just said 90 days instead of 90 sols. This is yet another example of bourgeoisie boffins creating their own language to keep the masses from taking control of their own destiny. They even use the term "yestersol" to denote the previous martian day. You can't just make words up.

Spirit's landing site was chosen because it was believed that water had existed at that site in the past. The rover was gently plummeted to the surface with a parachute and an airbag. Airbags are a great technology created by NASA and then brought to the mainstream by auto-manufacturers. They were initially used before stairs had been invented. NASA scientists would simply fall off high ledges onto the soft airbag waiting below. Before stairs were invented scientists would reach higher floors by riding small rockets.

When Spirit landed it rolled out of its airbag and took a panoramic shot of the panorama. It was the most detailed photo of rocks every captured on a different planet.

Spirit's time on Mars wasn't all parties and stones. It had its fair share of problems. A software error caused the rover to continually reboot itself. The problem was tracked down and a solution was transmitted to fix the rover's emotional instability. Spirit was a plucky robot with plenty of spirit, just like Johnny-5.

Everyone agreed that a slide-show of snapshots about rocks was dull. What they really needed to do was get the party going with some rock crushing. Spirit used its Rock Abrasion Tool to scrape some rocks. It was all a bit disappointing. Sure, the scientists got excited, but no one else understood what they were talking about.

Spirit lasted a lot longer than it was meant to because unexpected dust-devils would periodically clean the rover's solar panels. This power-boost let the rover trundle on like another plucky robot we all know and love. Johnny-5 is alive...on Mars. Thank you Hollywood!