Craig is temporarily a post-doctoral fellow at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute who is looking for a permanent position. He spends most of his time balancing his overwhelming geekdom with normalcy so he can function in the real world. Luckily his wife likes his geekiness.
Peter Etnoyer is a Graduate Research Associate at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi. He studies deep corals and ocean fronts, and he loves to be on the water.
Kevin Zelnio is a Graduate Student Researcher at Penn State studying the ecology of hydrothermal vent and methane seep communities. He raises awareness of the plight of the spineless through folk music.
Congratulations to the Phoenix landing team for an absolutely best-scenario landing! I tuned in for the landing on NASA TV online. Seeing all the tension and excitement at Mission Control got me positively bouncing in my desk chair. I was just amazed that everything happened exactly how it should. We now have 3 active robots on Mars providing us scientific data. Did you ever in your wildest dreams imagine this? Additionally, this was the first propulsion landing since the Viking lander, over 30 years ago.
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What amazes me more is that they did it on limited budget and got it exactly right.
NASA really should promote the hell out of this, both the rover and lander teams have accomplished their missions, and in the case of the rovers more than that.
It's a remarkable testimony to good engineering that those rovers are still going.
Posted by: Tony P | May 25, 2008 7:01 PM
Thanks for the heads-up. I thought that was still a couple of days away. Mad props for the people at NASA and the Phoenix team.
Posted by: Art | May 25, 2008 8:09 PM
I am amazed that Phoeniz is sitting only a quarter of a degree off level, solars panels and cameras deployed, pictures (b&w) already.
Posted by: stillwaggon | May 25, 2008 8:23 PM
"...both the rover and lander teams have accomplished their missions'"
Nope, the Phoenix team has their probe landed. That was the first part of their mission. The rest is still to come. 90 days from now we'll see if they accomplished it.
Posted by: Ian | May 27, 2008 4:43 AM