Start and Finish

FINAL FAREWELL: More news about the end of Mars rover Opportunity's last hours is coming to light. Apparently the last transmission from the over-achieving explorer was the nine words above. 

*Sniffle*

I can't tell you how many friends of mine posted something about Opportunity's end-of-mission message yesterday and added the sentiment "I'm not crying, you're crying." 

It's funny, thinking about it. Why would we be emotional about the end of a robot's mission?

I'm going to have to blame "Star Wars" for this one. I was raised on the sci fi serial, and anthropomorphized robots are an important part of that story. How we all fretted over the fates of R2-D2 and C3PO!  And those were just fictional robots, while Opportunity was a real 'live' one. 

Yesterday, while most people were sending Valentine's greetings, I used a NASA portal to send an message of appreciation to our dearly-departed rover. You can check it out here: https://mars.nasa.gov/participate/postcard/opportunity-rover/

Here's the sentiment I sent. ...

After you submit your postcard, you can read ones that others have sent. Not gonna lie, I got misty reading the messages. This 90-day-turned-15-year mission meant so much to so many.  

ACCEPTANCE: Great news came today via an email CJ received. He has been accepted into the esteemed Western Aerospace Scholars program!

He submitted his application a couple of months ago. It involved a couple of essays about why he wanted to join. I was a little bit worried about the application, because it involved asking his high school counselor and principal to certify his eligibility. Yeah, well, that would be me. ... I filled out the 'certifications' as his parent and counselor and principal. Fortunately, his application was satisfactory. :)

It will involve a month's worth of lessons he has to complete online. Per the program's website, "The online curriculum is a University of Washington college course focused on NASA’s space exploration program as well as topics in Earth and Space Science." That should be familiar territory for MPA students. :)

If he meets the curriculum goals, he will be eligible for the multi-day "Summer Experience." The summer school will allow scholars to "explore the universe in which we live, meet your fellow 'space geeks,' and challenge yourself to plan realistic a future space mission," per the program.

Added bonuses: The program is free and he'll earn 5 college credits from the University of Washington for completing it!

Heart of the Matter

HAVE A HEART: I've never been a big (or even small) Valentine's Day fan, really. Don't get me wrong, I have loved helping my kids make cute cards for their friends, and a cool card collection box (like this one Annabelle made last year). And I made the kids heart-shaped pancakes for breakfast. However, I really kind of deplore the 'holiday' in general, specifically. to me, it seems like it's all about brow-beating people into thinking they have to be over-the-top demonstrating their affection for a loved one(s). 

I asked the kids this morning what Valentine's Day means. Annabelle said, "It's Singles' Awareness Day."  

That made me laugh out loud. (Annabelle added that she is not the originator of that meme.)

CJ postulated, "It's about a murdered Catholic guy who nobody remembers."

"St. Valentine?" I asked.

So, off to the Internet we went to get to the root of this Valentine's Day business. Right off the bat, we found a short, informative video on the History Channel's website. It didn't allow me to embed it for the blog, but you can see it here: https://www.history.com/topics/valentines-day/history-of-valentines-day-2

The video is full of information. It mentioned that while many think that the holiday was named after a Catholic priest, there were really a couple of Valentines back in the day, and not much is know about either. It is known that in 496 Pope Gelasious I, the third and last Bishop of Rome of berber origin, declared February 14 as Valentine's Day. Gelasious apparently called Valentine 'soft hearted' for secretly performing weddings for Roman soldiers (it was thought single men made better warriors). However, because so little is known about St. Valentine's life and the circumstances of his martyrdom, in 1969, the Roman Catholic Church removed the name of St. Valentine from the liturgical calendar. Yet the commercial holiday churns on!

As it turns out, the mid-February celebration's true origin is not Catholicism. Rather, it's yet another pagan festival or celebration that was co-opted by Christianity along the way.

Multiple sources cite the origin of the mid-February celebration as Lupercalia, which, you might deduce, was actually a celebration of wolves (lupus). For some 1200 years, Romans celebrated Lupercalia, and it sounds like it was quite a party if you believe the research of Historia Civilis. It apparently involved two factions of priests meeting in a cave not far from Rome, doing some Romulus and Remus-themed ceremony that involved sacrificing three goats and a dog. There were human stand ins for the R&R twins. The Fabii and Quintilii priest apparently drank copious amounts of wine, got naked and then went running around the streets of town lashing people with whips they'd fashioned out of the sacrificed goat hides. The whipping was all in good fun, it seems. Apparently if you were whipped, it meant good luck (you'd find a partner, have an easier childbirth, that kind of thing). Go figure.

So there you have it. 

Wonder if Hallmark has any Lupercalia cards. ...  

And here's that Historia Civilis video, in case you want a slightly longer version of the Lupercalia story. https://youtu.be/a_ZGSpQaw3A

The Ends

Artist's rendition of Mars rover Opportunity at work

LOST OPPORTUNITY: Sad news from the nation's Space Agency today. Opportunity, an over-achieving Mars rover launched, has reached the end of the line. 

In all NASA has sent over 1,000 messages to Opportunity since it fell silent during the epic dust storm on the Red Planet.

Opportunity's identical twin, Spirit, was pronounced dead in 2011, a year after it got stuck in sand and, eventually, communication ceased.

Though it's sad to see it go, Opportunity's mission is certainly one to be celebrated! Below is a shadow 'selfie' the rover took during its first year on Mars.

Launched from Cape Canaveral in 2003, Opportunity literally bounced onto the Martian surface, landing on Meridiani Planum, on Jan. 24, 2004. (Its twin, Spirit, was on the other side of Mars, landing at Gusev Crater 20 days earlier.) 

By far the longest-lasting lander on Mars, the six-wheeled, golf-cart-sized rover set a roaming record of 28.06 miles - the longest off-Earth trek by any rover. 

Originally slated for a 90-day mission, the intrepid rover rolled on for 14-plus years.
Here's a short overview of the mission: https://youtu.be/1Ll-VHYxWXU

At 11 a.m. our time, the kids and I tuned in to a NASA press conference announcing the official end of Opportunity. Today's briefing participants included NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine, Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Lori Glaze, acting director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division, Michael Watkins, JPL director, Steve Squyres, MER principal investigator at Cornell University, John Callas, MER project manager, Matt Golombek, MER project scientist, Abigail Fraeman, MER deputy project scientist and Jennifer Trosper, Mars 2020 project systems engineer.

Here's CJ's recap of what we learned during the hour-long event. ...

On June 10th of 2018, NASA's Opportunity rover, which had been on Mars for approximately 14 years by that point, "went silent," meaning that NASA was no longer able to contact the rover, or receive data from it. On February 13, 2019, NASA officially cancelled the Opportunity mission, largely due to the rover's silence and increasingly worn equipment. Opportunity accompanied Spirit, which was active until 2010 (when it became stuck in one area), and was joined by the Curiosity rover in 2012. (Curiosity is still on the job!)

On the day NASA officially canned the (venerable, by Mars technology standards) Opportunity mission, they had an event broadcast on NASA TV, their official TV station. The event featured a number of prominent people at NASA, including Mike Watkins, Jim Bridenstine, Steve Squyres, and Matt Golombek, among others. Some of those who worked on Opportunity in its early days told their stories about working on and with Opportunity, including the landing process.

Opportunity was only intended to last ninety days, but lasted for over fourteen years, largely due to the utilization of a technique referred to as "deep sleep." Every night, Opportunity could turn off its equipment and lose temperature, and, at the end of the night, turn back on, because enough heat had been preserved through the night. This allowed Opportunity to conserve power, and thus keep going well into the 2010s.

What CJ didn't mention above is that the 'deep sleep' was not a planned part of Oppy's operation. It became necessary when a part on one of the rover's 'legs' started to malfunction and overheat. That necessitated engineers to come up with a work around. They decided to power the whole rover down every night as a way of allowing it to continue to operate for a few hours each day. One scientist said it was akin to flipping the breaker on your electrical service panel to turn off your lights rather than using a light switch.

Annabelle has this to share about the news conference we watched today. ...

After nearly 15 years of exploration on Mars, the Opportunity rover has been given its last command. The rover launched in 2003 and landed in 2004, with an original planned mission of 90 days. The mission ended up being functional until June 10th of 2018, where the rover went "silent" and was unable to send data back to Earth due to accumulation of dust and lack of sunlight.

Today there was a press conference directly from JPL (Jet Propulsion Laboratory) about how the end of the Opportunity mission has inspired ideas for future missions and what we can learn from it. NASA and JPL are planning to use some of the discoveries they made with Opportunity and its "twin", Spirit, to develop designs and plans for future missions, even deciding landing sites!

A number of engineers and NASA employees including Mike Watkins (JPL Director), Jim Bridenstine (NASA Administrator), and Abigail Fraeman (a research scientist who was a student at the time of launch) described how they felt attached to this mission, almost as if Opportunity was a friend or family member. They mentioned how both rovers had made great discoveries that expanded possibilities when they discovered leftovers of sulfuric acid and water on the surface embedded in rocks. Opportunity trekked through dunes, valleys, and craters, getting stuck occasionally but continuing to power through well past its 90-day initial mission. Hopefully other Mars missions are just as successful as Opportunity, starting with the planned "Mars 2020" rover set to launch mid-July.

Project manager John Callas told The Associated Press the end of the mission is melancholy. “It’s just like a loved one who’s gone missing, and you keep holding out hope that they will show up and that they’re healthy,” he said. “But each passing day that diminishes, and at some point you have to say ‘enough’ and move on with your life.”

The biggest take away from today? I think it's that the story of Opportunity (and Spirit) is not over. Their lessons live on in current and future Mars missions. 

Some of feathers in the twins' caps include discovering that Mars had the wet and warm conditions, potentially hospitable to life, in its ancient past. Opportunity was the first rover to identify and characterize sedimentary rocks on a planet other than Earth, and discovered small spheres of hematite nicknamed "blueberries" (pictured below) that formed late from rising, acidic groundwater. 

On the rim of Endeavour crater, the rover found white veins of the mineral gypsum, which scientists say is a telltale sign of water that once traveled through underground fractures. 


During its run, Opportunity and its team overcame dozens of challenges. For instance, after the rover landed at Eagle Crater, its wheels slipped on the loose slopes. The rover team had to come up with new driving strategies to get out. Similarly, when Oppy visited Endurance Crater, it encountered slopes as steep as 31 degrees. On April 26, 2005, the rover's wheels got stuck for several weeks in a spot dubbed "Purgatory Dune." However, after extensive testing in a Mars-like sandbox at JPL, the team was able to carefully navigate Opportunity out of the Martian sand trap.

Combined, Opportunity and Spirit returned over 342,000 raw images, all of which were posted online for everyone's enjoyment and amazement.

For highlights of the Mars Exploration Rover mission, visit: https://mars.nasa.gov/mer/highlights/


For more information about the Mars Exploration Rover program, visit:https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mer

You can watch a replay of the briefing here: https://youtu.be/cnddzE4YSzg or via the embedded video, below.


Farewell and rest easy, Rover. I predict some day - perhaps in my lifetime - humans will come find you, dust you off, and give you a jump start. 

SO LONG, SAFECO: This morning, for a few minutes, the kids and I watched Safeco Field being dismantled.

OK, so it wasn't our entire beloved ballpark. Rather, the prominent Safeco Field sign was being removed, as naming rights to the home of the Seattle Mariners have been sold. (Its new name is T-Mobile Park and we are already cringing at the thought of the place turning T-Mobile magenta, as is their branding practice.)

Local news station KING 5 was broadcasting the event live. In the screen shot below, if you look on the sidewalk, you can see the S A and F letters are already down. 

We speculated about the weight of the letters (500 pounds? More? Less?) and where those letters will wind up. Hopefully not on a scrap pile! I'd be happy to put them on my roof. :)

Perhaps they'll go to Safeco Insurance, who paid for them to begin with, or maybe they'll wind up at MOHAI (the Museum of History and Industry). MOHAI has an impressive collection of signs from other Seattle icons.

One for the Books

SO SNOWY: I'm trying to think of the last time there wasn't some snow on the ground. It's been days. And days. And it feels like weeks. 

Though it might sounds like I'm being a tad dramatic, take this fact into account: 

So there you have it. It's only February 12, and this month has been the snowiest one in Seattle since 1969. 

We'd had some flurries before, but the snow started falling in earnest on February 8th. I decided to station Captain James T. Kirk out in the backyard to act as our snow gauge.

The first photo I took of him was at 12:30 p.m. on the 8th. There was already about an inch on the retaining wall where I placed him (photo at top of blog post).

By 4:30 that afternoon, the Captain was up to his knees in it. 

Come twilight (about 5:30 p.m.), Kirk looked downright frigid. He was nearly waist high, and had a 'hat' of snow.

 By 9:30 that night, he was chest deep.

 We got even more snow overnight, and the Captain was up to his chin.

Fortunately, we were able to (mostly) enjoy the pretty snow without too much trouble. We have two cars with all wheel drive and chains, so we're fortunate in that regard. We were able to get my parents to the airport on Saturday afternoon, no trouble. We've played board games, enjoyed a fire, had plenty of groceries and multiple tasty meals ... not bad at all! 

Long range forecasts call for snow off and on for the next week plus. Time will tell how much more fluffy stuff the skies bring. ...

LISTEN UP: All-too-often around MPA, I hear myself telling the student body they need to be better listeners.

I say it, and somehow it doesn't just magically happen. ... Hmm.  

That got me to thinking (finally!). I could exhort the kids to be 'better' at algebra, but unless we practice it and work toward it, that's not magically going to happen. Seems to me that listening is, likewise, a skill that maybe just isn't inherent for many and it has to be taught. Don't know why I didn't think about that before.

Anyway, when I started contemplating how to learn to be a better listener, my mind immediately turned to TED. I figured there just *had* to be a TED talk or ten about listening skills. 

We wound up watching one today with "sound expert" Julian Treasure. With 6.9 million views, I figured it had to be at least somewhat legit. In the talk, Treasure shares ways to re-tune your ears for conscious listening. It's worth a listen, IMHO. 

Following are a few of CJ's 'takeaways' from the video we watched.

This morning, after completing a brief arithmetic exercise on Khan Academy, we watched a TED Talk given by Julian Treasure, titled "Five ways to listen better," about, as the title implies, how to improve one's listening skills. While I won't provide an equivalent to the entire lecture in this essay, I will list my two biggest takeaways, both of which are ways to listen in our noisy, crowded world, from the lecture:

First, one thing somebody can do to gain a better sense of listening is to employ "the mixer." "The mixer" is a process where, in a noisy environment, one determines how many "channels" of sound there are around you. An example, as provided by Treasure in the video, is determining how many birds are present in a nature environment, and where they are around you.

Second, Treasure recommended "savoring" the sounds and noises around you, even if they seem (and/or actually are) mundane and uninteresting. For example, it can be interesting to think about the nature of certain sounds and noises, such as those made by laundry machines, and why those things make those noises. Treasure referred to the sounds around us as "the invisible choir."