The Red Dot

I set up an Alarm to wake up at five am. Got up and switched on my XBOX and TV. A week earlier I had installed an application called “Live event player”. All this hustle and bustle on a Sunday morning with rain drops kissing the windows. My wife is fast asleep and does not even bother to ask what I am up to. Given the time of the day and the weather outside I would not blame her.

            August the fifth 2012 was one such special day for me. A memorable seven minutes that morning Sunday Morning. The time it took for the greatest machine man has ever created to touch down.  On this momentous day some four hundred million kilometers away the human race re-ascertained their presence and their intellectual dominance in the solar system. The Curiosity rover also known as the MSL ( Mars Surface Laboratory ) touched down on our immediate neighbor. MARS. This is a significant milestone for all of us just for the reason that in the grand program for the exploration of Mars after this advanced rover landing, human missions are next on the cards.

Curiosity, the 2.5 billion dollar rover is an amazing feat of engineering and human imagination. Back in 2008 when funds for it were granted, I remember getting on to the NASA link where a live web cam stream showed the engineers working on the construction of the Rover. In a clean room with the mechanics all suited up in white and caps were putting together the most expensive scientific exploration machine. Scientists from around the world worked on the project to fit as many instruments as possible at the same time making them light and strong. The rover which is almost the size of a small car weighed in around 900 kilograms. It was too heavy to be powered by the technology that its older yet smaller siblings the ‘Opportunity’ and ‘Spirit’ used. The humble Solar Panel.(One of them which is still doing duty after 8 years in-spite of having a project time line of just 90 days). Curiosity can be credited as the coolest rover because its power source is “Nuclear”!! The rover is expected to do duty for close to two years. The most audacious goal for the rover would be to be the part of the welcome group to set up the base camp for future human explorers. Most of the things about the Rover and its technical specs are available on the internet but the planet Mars is more intriguing than any other heavenly body out there.

Few of the facts that have drawn mankind’s attention since centuries are the fact that it was the only terrestrial body that was close by, just a little hospitable. Moon is far too closer but without any atmosphere it’s dangerous for any form of life. In the early 1800’s with poor telescopes some of the early astronomers to earn more brownie points dared to make bold declarations Mars is, or was inhabited by civilized life and the proof of that was the long straight lines crisscrossing the surface of Mars. This was interpreted as Canals. That started the whole fiasco in Hollywood about Martians and their conniving plan to attack the human race kind of movie. In the early seventies with better telescope the dry, arid landscapes of Mars showed up. They told a different tale. The enthusiasm that people had about Mars soon diminished. Years later a rock that has been sitting in a lab for many years which was found in the Arctic was re-examined. The fact that it came over from mars was known but on a much closer inspection a feature on the rock rejuvenated the fantasy of scientists and layman alike. It’s still a hotly debated issue. Many say its how ferrous based minerals at micro scale react and form structures lining themselves along the magnetic lines of the planet where as some astro-biologists say that it’s the excrement of microorganisms after ingesting dirt.

Now we have the extension of man on the Martian surface. It could boldly make the statement that Captain Picard made. “To go where no man has ever been before”. Curiosity has drilled a 2.5 inch hole into a rock with once was at the river bed. With bated breath I wait to hear the results. NASA wants to make sure before they make any announcements, because the answers that Curiosity provides can raise lot of the theological questions. Uproot some of the faith and beliefs that many religion are based on. Let’s say, “It can shake things up”. Shake things that were created centuries ago when man knew nothing about science. Now his own very “Curiosity” has got him this far. But we know what they say about the man’s urge to know more “Curiosity killed the cat”. I would coin that word a bit different going forward. “Curiosity set the cat Free”. Now where is the Hot Wheelz Curiosity model I ordered!