A couple of months ago, the Curiosity spaceship was headed for a rendezvous with planet Mars. A lot of planning went into this meet up. As time got closer to the landing, more and more media outlets were reporting various aspects of Curiosity's journey; spaceship design, what the landing would look like, interviews with assorted individuals associated with the landing, etc.
I've always been a bit of a space nut, so I admit that I was a excited for what was soon to happen. Then the big moment arrived. Unfortunately, since I live in the Eastern Daylight Time part of the country, I wouldn't be able to see the live broadcast of the landing unless I stayed up until 1 AM.
Though I'm a big, space nut - I'm an even bigger nut for the restorative powers of a good night's sleep. I was in a quandary. Then my husband says "Go ahead and get a good night's sleep. You can always see the taped versions on tomorrow's morning shows." So I agreed and went to bed.
At approximately 5 minutes within the time that Curiosity was to land, I woke up - wide eyed. I decided to get up and see if the wonder ship had landed safely and accurately or would NASA be crying buckets of tears.
I turned on the television. None of the local stations chose to run the story - even at the 1 AM hour and since we don't have any type of cable television - I fired up the Internet.
I came in on the scene with all these folks at the Jet Propulsion Lab, hugging each other, slapping five, fist pumping and some even tearing up. Curiosity had landed! And landed precisely! I was thrilled.
I sat and watched the proceedings for about 15 minutes. During that time, the hugging, slapping five, tears and a bit of appropriate yelling took place. At about 10 minutes into the celebrating, all the JPL people returned to their work stations. And a disembodied voice started talking scientific lingo to them.
They had started a systems check. Everyone was in serious science mode! And the voice said something to the effect "science,science, science at 20 knots per second" (I'm making these words up because the science talk was Greek to me). And as soon as the voice said this the entire room broke out in huge laughter with more slapping fives. It was like watching rats in a maze as I tried to figure out what they were saying. It was all over my head.
They got quiet again. Paying deathly attention to their work. Then the voice said "Science, science, science 250 kill-o-vessels" -(or something like that - but not that). And again with the big laughter!
This scene struck me funny. I was grinning about it as I made my way back to bed. As I lay down and was drifting off to sleep, another image came to my mind - an image that tells this story in a short, precise manner - and I did in fact laugh out loud right there in bed.
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