We landed on Mars! And by “we,” I mean a bunch of scientists who have never met me and probably don’t appreciate that I’m taking credit. Anyhow, this is a great achievement for me, America, and all humans. We even have a video of the rover landing (so cool!!), featuring a parachute with JPL’s slogan on it (in binary, just to be edgy, I guess).
Let’s take one second to discuss JPL’s slogan “Dare mighty things.” It is a bad slogan. I think they should change it to the equally awful “Boldly go,” which is at least the name of a shockingly decent Star Trek themed musical. JPL continues to be the uncontestedly best NASA center. Perseverance joins Curiosity and the late Spirit, Opportunity, and Sojourner on Mars, completing all the qualities necessary for the American Dream (if you changed the name of Sojourner to “Rich Parents”). It’s hard to be cynical about the rovers, though, because they fill my heart with joy. Sojourner, Spirit, and Opportunity are all like cute little hermit crabs. Curiosity and Perseverance are more like alarming spider crabs in shape, but they still do fun rover things.
To honor this historic event, I’d like to give a few of my own suggestions to the space program. I’d say I’m pretty qualified to do so, since I’m in AP Physics (:O).
Go Perseverance! The final frontier is no match for our cute little spider crab buddy.
Let’s take one second to discuss JPL’s slogan “Dare mighty things.” It is a bad slogan. I think they should change it to the equally awful “Boldly go,” which is at least the name of a shockingly decent Star Trek themed musical. JPL continues to be the uncontestedly best NASA center. Perseverance joins Curiosity and the late Spirit, Opportunity, and Sojourner on Mars, completing all the qualities necessary for the American Dream (if you changed the name of Sojourner to “Rich Parents”). It’s hard to be cynical about the rovers, though, because they fill my heart with joy. Sojourner, Spirit, and Opportunity are all like cute little hermit crabs. Curiosity and Perseverance are more like alarming spider crabs in shape, but they still do fun rover things.
To honor this historic event, I’d like to give a few of my own suggestions to the space program. I’d say I’m pretty qualified to do so, since I’m in AP Physics (:O).
- Restaurant on Venus (lots of atmosphere!)
- Film a fake moon landing on Mars
- Redistribute some of Jupiter’s moons — it doesn’t need them all, and Mercury deserves at least two for all it’s been through
- Start a competing space station orbiting Venus
- Chase down voyager; replace the golden record with a recording of Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up”
- Switch Uranus and Neptune; see if anyone notices
- Add one of those giant Texan belt buckles to the asteroid belt
- Drop stuff on Pluto until it’s large enough to be considered a planet
- Land on Jupiter. Doesn’t have a surface? MAKE ONE
- Put Elon Musk on Mars
Go Perseverance! The final frontier is no match for our cute little spider crab buddy.