So 7 months to Christmas. Or, on a more cheerful note, about 6 weeks until the nights start to shorten. The glorious weather of a few weeks back is but a memory. The rain pounds down from a leaden sky, bashing on the wooden patio.
If Wimbledon marks the start of high summer, then the start of the French open tennis is a sign that this is not so far away. The ghastly Andre Murray scrapes through against an unknown Frenchman.
The test match amazingly escapes the weather, though it looks pretty nippy up there. Vettori rips through England and the Kiwis look to have the match in the bag, though when they bat, Monty does an even more comprehensive job on them. A good start by England leaves the match delicately poised.
The parents arrive for dinner. I cook chicken and pork, with more stinging nettles. I drain them better this time and they are well received. It's a lovely meal, and they are in cheerful form. Malcolm leaves for a while, and fails to return for dinner.
Last August we went to Florida. Billed as the holiday of a lifetime to celebrate my 50th birthday, the daily jaunts to the Wonderful World of Walt left me struggling to disguise that I was underwhelmed, and in general I failed miserably, to the growling annoyance of my dear spouse.
The highlight for me was to watch the launch of a space shuttle mission, though even this was a slight anti climax. You really don't get very close at all, but I loved the space center(sic) tour. Unfortunately due to the 24 hour delay we suffered, we missed another launch, that of the Mars Phoenix lander.
Every day since though, forgotten by most of the world's population, this little craft has been hurtling towards the red (actually brown) planet at some extraordinary rate of knots, covering over 400 million miles in the process. It is heading for the martian arctic, where it hopes to dig into a layer of subsurface ice. Less than one in two such craft reach their destination, and I tune in excitedly to watch the NASA coverage.
7 minutes of fear is the billing, as the craft has to decelerate from 12500 mph to 5mph in that time. Everything has to work perfectly, there are no second chances, and of course, due to the distance involved, no chance to correct anything should it be seen to have gone wrong. In fact, by the time we are ready too observe the 7 crucial minutes, it's fate is already decided. It's either landed or crashed, and all we can do is follow it's fate fifteen minutes after it has happened. Dan watches with me.
The craft separates on time. The parachutes open. The parachutes detach, sending it into freefall towards the surface. Then the rockets fire. It slows down. Mission control are announcing 1200 metres, 1000 metres. Then it's in the hundreds, then 80, 50, and then 10 8, 5, and finally contact. Fantastic! What an achievement.
Phoenix sends back a message to say it's where it should be and then so bravely turns itself off. It's deliberate. It communicates with earth via three satellites orbiting the planet, and they are due to move out of range. So to save battery it switches off until one of them reappears, whence the signal can be sent to start unpacking all of it's boxes of tricks.
H is still awake when I go downstairs at two and her first question is for the fate of the little lander. Well done everyone.
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