Endeavor, Opportunity! - The Gormogons

This photograph astonishes the Czar, and likely GorTechie, to a deep degree.

Know what this is, that foggy shape in the haze?

Millions of miles away, there is a planet you have heard of named Mars.

On the planet Mars are many craters. One of them has been named Endeavor. It has only been seen in high orbit photographs, like the one shown to the left. No, it is not the largest crater in the solar system, nor remotely the largest crater on Mars. It is a minor crater by almost every standard…but it is a known crater. A landmark if you will.

And we, humans, homo sapiens sapientis, know about this crater. Other than photographs like you see to the left, we have not actually seen it, like most people on Earth know about the pyramids of Egypt, although they have never seen them personally. For they are millions of miles away on a barren planet lethal to us in every way.

And we, humans, people like you, built a robot. We folded it up, stuffed it into a giant metal column filled with explosives, and blew it skyward. It traveled in emptiness for years, until it landed on Mars. We did not think it would survive, but it did. We did not think it would function, but it unfolded itself, and drove down a ramp and started looking around. We doubted it would last more than a few months, but the plucky robot our children named Opportunity defied all odds and survived for years in a freezing hell. It is still functioning, and it wants to do more. So we sent it on a two-year drive. Why not, we thought, give it (and ourselves) something worth seeing. Let us send it to crater Endeavor. We strongly suspect it cannot last two years in that environment, when it is so dangerously over its expected life span.

And then, we humans got back the picture above. That ghostly shape on the horizon, my friends, is the outer rim of Endeavor. Opportunity has made it to Endeavor. The little bastard did it. Yes, it still has a long way to go: those hills are high, and we are still miles away. But you can see them. A place we only knew as a circle on photo is now a tangible shape on the horizon.

The Golden Gate, the St. Louis Arch, the Sears Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel, Big Ben, the Taj Mahal, the Great Wall. Places on a map until you see them and you think “Hey, that’s pretty cool.” And it is, because it instantly becomes a real place you cannot deny.

Nice job, Opportunity. Your appropriate name led to an equally appropriately named destination. Oh, and helluva job, human race.

The Czar of Muscovy

Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.