Mars 2020
Happy Friday, Everyone!
This week has been a welcomed return back to a somewhat normal routine. With the arctic blast officially behind us, it’s amazing to see 60 and 70 degree temps again!
This week’s issue is all about geeking out over NASA’s recent successful landing of its Perseverance rover on Mars. It’s an awesome accomplishment, but the more I learned about the engineering and science behind the mission, the more I realize just how amazing the effort really was. The fact that we have learned enough to send a rocket into space and land a vehicle on a distant planet with almost pinpoint accuracy is a testament to human potential and our ability to solve hard problems when we come together toward a common goal.
So, here are some curated links about the mission:
On February 18th, NASA landed a new rover on Mars and captured the landing on camera. Not only that, but they have begun collecting sounds from Mars.
For those of you who like clever puzzles, apparently there was a Hidden Message Encoded in Perseverance Parachute (also here).
NASA has a gallery of images sent back from the Perseverance that they keep updated. Raw image library here.
A little more on The Insane Engineering of the Perseverance Rover and some general information on the overall mission.
The rover wasn’t the only thing that is now on Mars. Along with Perseverance, NASA sent a small drone helicopter called Ingenuity to the planet as well. Flying a drone helicopter on a planet that only has 1% of Earth’s atmosphere has some unique challenges such as the inability to control the helicopter from Earth, extreme temperature swings, and the lightweight that is required to pull it all off. Here’s a video that discusses some of the science behind the Ingenuity helicopter.
The human imagination is pretty remarkable. NASA’s mission to Mars is a glimpse at what we can accomplish when people from all over the world work together toward a common goal. There are many critical issues to focus our energies on here at home such as hunger, poverty, climate change, health, and so much more. My hope is that we will take NASA’s example, use it as inspiration, and strive to utilize our collective intelligence to solve some of the complex problems we face here on Earth.
Site Updates
No blog posts this week, but I have added a few pieces of content to other sections of the site:
Firewall Draft - I have posted early drafts of the first two chapters of the Firewall project that I’ve been working on. Visit the Firewall Living Docs page to read the Introduction and Identify chapters.
Interactive Fiction Resources - I added a new section to the Living Docs page that serves as a central location for various resources relating to the topic of Interactive Fiction (IF). IF is something I have been quietly studying in my spare time and I hope to eventually write my own game in the near future. Learning the techniques and tools is the first step and the resources on this page are some of the initial fruits of my research.
I hope you have a great week. Stay safe, my friends.