Perseverance I: Liftoff.

At the start of 2021, the robotic population of Mars will increase by one.* The Perseverance rover launched early this morning from Cape Canaveral, and is scheduled to land at Jezero Crater next year on February 18th. 

However, this mission is a little different than its predecessors.  In addition to the same kind of physical exploration performed by other rovers, the newest citizen of the Red Planet is acting as a scout for future manned missions to Mars:  testing technologies for extracting oxygen from the thin Martian atmosphere, identifying crucial resources such as subterranean water, trialing new landing procedures, and analyzing environmental conditions to allow future explorers to better predict dangerous weather.

Perseverance has also been tasked with searching for microbial life forms, in hopes of answering the ongoing question as to whether or not there is any sort of life on the surface of Mars, and whether or not there may have been life in the past.

Perseverance will be the first rover equipped to store drilled core samples for eventual collection.  It's an important development - in spite of all the robotic exploration and experimentation which has taken place on the surface of Mars, no samples have been returned to Earth for further study and research, and this change in sampling strategy is part of the planning for astronauts to visit Mars.

To be completely accurate, I should have started by saying that the populations of Mars will increase by two.  Perseverance isn't alone on its mission - it has a companion called Ingenuity,  a lightweight autonomous*** solar-powered helicopter drone which will hopefully perform the first powered flight on Mars, thereby opening a completely new door for rapidly exploring the planet's surface.

The atmosphere of Mars is about 1% the density of Earth's, which makes powered flight a definite challenge, but on the plus side, the gravity is only 1/3 that of Earth.  I'm confident that the science behind Ingenuity is sound, which means we're going to see some spectacular drone shots of Mars.

Building on the unexpected longevity of previous rovers like Curiousity and Opportunity, the mission duration for Ingenuity and Perseverance is a Martian year, or sol, which is about 687 Earth days.  We wish you both a good trip and a safe landing - and hey, be careful up there, it's dangerous.

- Sid

* Unfortunately, we don’t have enough AI in place yet** on Mars for the kind of Darwinian self-replicating robotic evolution that pops up now and then in science fiction. Recommended reading would be Code of the Lifemaker by James P. Hogan, A Circus of Hells, by Poul Anderson, and innumerable short stories. (To a lesser extent, Gregory Benford’s Galactic Center series fall under this category as well.)

** Yet.

*** Autonomous is the key word here.  The worst-case 40 minute round-trip lag in transmission time  to Mars makes direct control impractical. Imagine trying to drive to work if you could only hit the brakes 20 minutes after you saw the light go red - with another 20 minute delay before your car stopped.  The good news is that there isn't anything else flying around for Ingenuity to hit - other than dust.

It IS the final frontier, after all.

Our thanks to Karli's sister Stefanie for a very on brand card for our move!  (Well, on brand for me, at least ... on brand for Karli is more likely to involve furry woodland creatures.) 

- Sid

Shelfish.

And, finally, Moving Day to our new apartment - a qualified disaster if I've ever experienced one.  

The moving company double-booked for our morning time slot, and decided to go with the people they'd booked after us instead - apparently first come is not first served. We spent the morning sitting impatiently in the middle of our packed possessions, receiving revised ETA after revised ETA, until a truck finally pulled up in our alley a full five and a half hours after the original arrival time that Ty, the owner, had promised us, and the moving process began to lurch painfully and slowly forward. 

We had one experienced mover, and two new hires - one who had been brought into the company a couple of months back, and one who had three whole days of experience.  Astonishingly, the other two found it necessary to repeatedly explain the most fundamental aspect of moving to this 17-year old neophyte: CARRY THINGS TO THE TRUCK - which you would think that almost anyone in the North American continent would already know.  

They ignored our request to have our furniture disassembled, but were kind enough to give me the tools to do their job for them, and decided that they didn't need to use the mattress bag that we'd also requested, cheerfully informing me that they wouldn't charge for it if they didn't use it (after dragging our mattress across the dirty floor of the truck).

As if to put icing on the cake, one of the movers - the 17-year old - quit his job between our old place and the new apartment, leading me to pitch in for the final stages of the move.  (What is the point of hiring movers if you have to carry boxes yourself?)

Since Karli had gone back to the old place to reassure a frightened Jaq the Cat, who had spent the first half of the move apprehensively locked in the bathroom, there was no one to direct the movers as to appropriate destinations for a lot of the items, leading to an incoherent mess of boxes and furniture.

The circus and its clown act finally left town, cash in hand, leaving me to assemble the bed so that we would at least have a place to sleep that night.  (The good news was that, since I'd taken the bed apart myself,  at least I knew where all the hardware was and how to put it back together.)

We spent the next few days feverishly emptying boxes, assembling furniture, and otherwise trying to get things sorted out before we had to go back to work.  Because we've both been working from home during the pandemic, it was more important than usual to get desks assembled and computers connected, which meant organizing the study sooner rather than later.

The good news is that, generally, shelving books is a quick unpacking activity, although I was operating under a bit of a handicap based on the complete chaos of the moving process.  I'm a methodical person, and I'd labelled the boxes alphabetically in order to make the process as seamless as possible.  In that scenario, I'd start with A for Abercrombie  and work my way through to Zelazny (or perhaps Zetlow, but you get the idea.)

In the real world, I had no idea when the A box was, and as such was forced to start with whatever letter of the alphabet came first to hand, which turned out to be H. We'd changed the configuration of the study from the old apartment, so I took my best guess, hoped for the best, and started dumping books onto shelves.

That being said, it was actually not too bad.  I did end up having to move a lot of books from shelf to shelf, but years of handing books has given me the ability to pick up an 18 or 24 inch spread of books and slide them onto a shelf, rather like someone playing an accordion made out of science fiction paperbacks.  It's fast and effective, but I have to say, don't try this at home unless you have a reasonable amount of forearm strength, it makes a bit of a mess if you can't maintain your grip.

Sad to say, I couldn't help but think that this would be the last time that I would move some of these books.  I can see retirement somewhere in the next decade, and unless circumstances change before then, we could easily stay in our new location that long.  But, when the time comes, we'll be downsizing to accommodate a reduced income, and a room full of books just won't be practical any more.

Although, I'm sure I'll keep a few, right?

Just a few...you know, the good ones, the ones I like.

- Sid

* The Infinite Revolution does NOT recommend Home Run Moving.  NOT.  NOT NOT NOT.  Zero stars.  No thumbs up.  0/10, would not use again.  And Ty?  You should be ashamed of yourself for how you handled things.