Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Today’s GOP: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Authoritarian republicans are opposed to freedom for the rest of us.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Not all heroes wear capes.

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Black Jesus loves a paper trail.

Infrastructure week. at last.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

In my day, never was longer.

Take hopelessness and turn it into resilience.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Everybody saw this coming.

“Everybody’s entitled to be an idiot.”

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / TOUCHDOWN

TOUCHDOWN

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Open thread for cool discoveries yet to happen!

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45Comments

  3. 3.

    Yutsano

    SPAAAAAAACE!!!

    Someone made the joke that if InSight found oil colonies would spring up on Mars overnight.

  11. 11.

    oldster

    Ah, that’s great! I am so happy about that.

    Can we refer to this probe as “Chapelle”? Mars, bitches!

  12. 12.

    Mary G

    Speaking as an old broad who grew up watching the control center full of white men in white shirts, it is so exciting to see so many young women in the game today. Still pretty white, though.

    ETA: and Dense Pence calls in, ugh.

  15. 15.

    The Moar You Know

    Well, America is still REALLY good at landing things on Mars. The surface is littered with pieces and ashes of Europe’s and Russia’s attempts to do so.

  16. 16.

    Spanky

    Here’s the AP headline:

    NASA says it has landed a spacecraft on Mars

    But who trusts them, any way?

  17. 17.

    spudgun

    @Mary G: Blergh…and just listened to the NASA administrator on the live feed gushingly praising the fascist orange to high heaven…bit of a damper on the proceedings.

    *sigh* Anyway – MARS! Yeah!

  20. 20.

    dexwood

    My wife called, her voice filled with excitement, because she was able to watch raw NASA feed in her co-worker’s office since he is a Mars geologist and consultant on this project and others. Pretty cool.

  22. 22.

    germy

    How are the previous mars rovers doing? I recall they thought one of them was no longer operational, and then a windstorm came along to blow all the dust off the solar panels, and the thing woke up again. This was a few years ago.

    Are they no longer functioning? They were pretty cool, taking soil samples and pictures.

  24. 24.

    dmsilev

    @germy: Spirit is MIA and has been for a few years. Opportunity may have succumbed to the latest round of dust storms and winter; it’s been a few months since we’ve managed to hear from it, but there’s still an outside chance that it will pull through. Curiosity is still going strong. Mars 2020, which doesn’t have a nickname yet, is due to launch in …2020.

  28. 28.

    Cermet

    Next, in five or so hours, the solar panels must successfully unfold. Otherwise, a short up. Doubt that will be an issue – the most dangerous step was the landing.

  30. 30.

    Roger Moore

    @Brachiator:

    Jet Propulsion Labs, and Caltech.

    JPL is part of NASA. It’s administered by Caltech, but legally it’s part of NASA. It’s similar to the way that the Lawrence labs are run by UC but legally part of DOE.

  31. 31.

    Matt McIrvin

    @The Moar You Know: This lander’s design is heavily based on the Phoenix lander from 2008. Phoenix was so named because it inherited much of its instrument suite and hardware from a cancelled mission (Mars Surveyor 2001), and another one that crashed (Mars Polar Lander)–a rare US failure at a Mars landing. The latter was around the same time as the embarrassing orbiter mission failure from a mismatch between US and metric units.

  32. 32.

    TenguPhule

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The latter was around the same time as the embarrassing orbiter mission failure from a mismatch between US and metric units.

    Good times. Back then it was the most exciting news of the day.

  33. 33.

    Matt McIrvin

    @TenguPhule: Well, I guess the race for the 2000 presidential nominations was already on at that point, but I recall people treating the whole business as a snoozer (always a danger sign). It was several months after they’d tried and failed to get rid of Bill Clinton… Lots of apprehension about Y2K, too…

  34. 34.

    dmsilev

    @Matt McIrvin:

    The latter was around the same time as the embarrassing orbiter mission failure from a mismatch between US and metric units.

    Forever after an object lesson used by intro science TAs to hammer home ‘always check your units’.

  35. 35.

    TenguPhule

    Alabama police have backtracked further from their claims about Emantic Bradford Jr., who was initially described as an active shooter after an officer killed him in a suburban Birmingham shopping mall on Thanksgiving evening.

    In a regretful statement the next day, police said the actual gunman had apparently escaped the Riverchase Galleria — but still maintained that Bradford, 21, “was fleeing the shooting scene while brandishing a handgun” when an officer shot him in a corridor outside the JCPenney store.

    In a third statement Monday, police raised doubts about whether Bradford even had his gun out when officers encountered him.

    “We can say with certainty Mr. Bradford brandished a gun during the seconds following the gunshots,” the statement reads, “which instantly heightened the sense of threat to approaching officers responding to the chaotic scene.”

    This fucking story is getting worse by the day.

    Police change explanation — again — after killing black man they mistook for an active shooter

    We’re on excuse version 3.0 from the Alabama cops at this point.

  36. 36.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Cermet: The biggest risk after landing is probably going to be deploying the new instruments. One of them is a heat probe that’s supposed to bore 5 meters underground.

  43. 43.

    David Evans

    @The Moar You Know: Agreed, alas. On the other hand Europe’s Mars Express orbiter has been doing a good job of mapping the Martian surface in 3D for 15 years, and will be available as a data relay for InSight when its cubesats are out of range.

  44. 44.

    Mnemosyne

    @schrodingers_cat:

    I have not, but I can’t really blame the poor beast. Otters may be the most adorable members of the weasel family, but they’re still vicious predators at heart, just like our pet kittehs.

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