th<\/sup>, 2021<\/i><\/p>\nThere\u2019s going to be a traffic jam at Mars this week, which is a bit disconcerting. Three craft are expected to arrive in the next ten days. The first one, tomorrow, is the United Arab Emirates\u2019 first attempt at Mars exploration. It\u2019s going to drop into orbit around Mars tomorrow, and spend the next few years analyzing the Martian atmosphere, looking for signs of any biological activity (methane, for instance) and perhaps determining what became of 99% of the atmosphere which Mars lost.<\/p>\n
The following day, the Chinese effort weighs in. Dubbed Tianwen-1, or \u201cQuest for Heavenly Truth\u201d, it\u2019s perhaps the most lyrically named of all the Martian craft, especially after the flat invocations of Horatio Alger wet dreams that adorn most American craft, or the English effort named after a cute but annoying breed of dog. (And yes, I know it was Darwin\u2019s ship\u2014don\u2019t write). For a first effort, it\u2019s ambitious in ways only the Chinese can manage these days. It will orbit Mars for three months, remotely surveying the surface before launching a small rover to the surface.<\/p>\n
The US effort is another Horatio Alger invocation, Perseverance. It\u2019s a full one ton rover, by far the largest yet, and will have the most dramatic landing, especially since it will be a full seven minutes before anyone knows its fate. Among other things, it will collect rock samples to be picked up by a player to be named later.<\/p>\n
The reason for the log jam is that the shortest and most effective transit between the two planets occurred last summer, something that happens every 22 months, and nobody wanted to wait that long for holiday rates.<\/p>\n
So if you want to visualize what Mars looks like right now, just turn on an old computer running Windows 3. Wait for the screen saver to pop up. All those flying toasters?<\/p>\n
Yup, that\u2019s about what Mars looks like right now. Hopefully all three will settle into their various assigned niches and be making delicious toast by the twentieth or so.<\/p>\n
On an even stranger and more alien planet, the trial of Donald John Trump in the US Senate begins. The single charge is insurrection. Trump won\u2019t testify, which is a pity; America sort of misses the ongoing circus\/zoo that was life under Trump now that he no longer has the power to get us all killed. We can all have fun watching the Republicans huff in moral outrage as they jettison any final shreds of actual morality.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m fairly sure that there\u2019s no life on Mars other than what rode along on the various craft that have landed there. We may find viruses on Mars, and if one of the happens to be COVID-19, we\u2019ll know that we infected the planet. Now, admittedly I would like to be wrong about native life on Mars\u2014I am old enough to remember the old John Carter stories and the notion that Mars had canals. If there is life, and assuming all three craft arrive successfully, we might actually know in the next year or so. That would definitely make up for the Canadian Football league season being canceled last year.<\/p>\n
I wonder if we could send Trump to Mars? Tell him the whole damn planet is unclaimed, there\u2019s no zoning regulations, and he can build whatever he wants. If he encounters other difficulties, such as lack of oxygen, temperatures colder than Antarctica, bone-melting radiation, or a dusting of perchlorates all over the planet, well, he should have done the reading. It was in the intelligence reports. I mean, if we\u2019re going to contaminate the planet anyway\u2026<\/p>\n
The future isn\u2019t as grim as it appeared scant weeks ago. Biden promised 100 million doses in the first hundred days, and after 16 days, 34.5 million had been administered. Biden caught flak from both sides on that promise, with one side saying it was a ridiculously optimistic forecast, and the other noting that it would be almost two full years to get everyone both their innoculations. However, COVID is fighting back, as expected. The new South African strain is somewhat unaffected by the shots. The good news is that it is affected enough that the mortality rate will be very low. But you know, that\u2019s evolution. Build a better mousetrap, and eventually you get better mice. COVID is going to become part of our lives, the way Influenza has. Since we, too, are creatures of evolution, we\u2019ll adapt, too.<\/p>\n
Climate change is a far more serious challenge, and we\u2019re pretty much out of time. The damage that has been done has yet to arrive, and there\u2019s no turning back. No matter what changes or advancements we make, costs will be in the trillions of dollars and millions of lives over the next decade, and may worsen after that. But we are making advances in non-carbon energy and energy storage, and in the wake of Biden\u2019s pledge to have an all-electric federal fleet, GM voted to be all electric by 2035.<\/p>\n
Our grandchildren won\u2019t be grateful that we screwed around for so long, but maybe we wised up soon enough that some of us will have grandchildren to sneer at us. The alternative is worse.<\/p>\n
Oh, and this is America\u2019s highest and most solemn religious holiday today, and my fearless forecast is that one team will win and the other will lose. That sounds boring as hell, so I\u2019m not paying attention.<\/p>\n
The landing of Perseverance is going to be much more interesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
First Week of February Second half of winter February 7th, 2021 There\u2019s going to be a traffic jam at Mars this week, which is a bit disconcerting. Three craft are expected to arrive in the next ten days. The first one, tomorrow, is the United Arab Emirates\u2019 first attempt at Mars exploration. It\u2019s going to … <\/p>\n
Continue reading “First Week of February — Second half of winter”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,577,60,18,385],"tags":[1127,1123,1126,1125,1129,625,1128,1130,1124],"class_list":["post-1040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-psyche","category-climate-change","category-politics","category-science","category-trump-impeachment","tag-china","tag-mars","tag-nasa","tag-perseverance","tag-quest-for-heavenly-truth","tag-senate","tag-tianwen-1","tag-trump-trial","tag-united-arab-emirates"],"yoast_head":"\nFirst Week of February -- Second half of winter · Zepp's Commentaries<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/zeppscommentaries.online\/?p=1040\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"First Week of February -- Second half of winter · Zepp's Commentaries\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"First Week of February Second half of winter February 7th, 2021 There\u2019s going to be a traffic jam at Mars this week, which is a bit disconcerting. 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