October 24, 2001

  • I'm enchanted by the notions of wandering, a walk-about, an odyssey: casting forth in full preparedness for an encounter with the Unknown. 


    Too much perhaps are we all constantly tagged, fixated, routinized, and ritualized into arrangements where such adventure seemingly becomes improbable, even if still desirable.


    My own personal feeling is though I'm palpably well-ensconced into an apparently static social-economic role (or roles lol ), in a blink of an eye, new adventure can and shall eventually unfold.


    Yet while I wait patiently as if with the instincts of a stalking wildcat for this newly-birthing moment of old-world-shattering opportunity to become manifest, I still enjoy an Odyssey in surrogate.  And here's one for all of us:


    2001 Mars Odyssey



    Named in honor of Arthur C. Clark, the author of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Odyssey is our technologically-proxied return to the Red Planet.  As a satellite that last night achieved orbit around Mars and is expected in the coming months to aerobrake into an even more optimal circling pattern, Odyssey will attempt to further expand the human spirit’s quest for cosmic attainments by conducting scientific queries in pursuit of the following goals:



    1) Determine whether life ever could have arose on Mars (indirectly by the search for water)



    2) Characterize the climate of Mars


    3) Characterize the geology of Mars


    4) Prepare for human exploration



    Of course, this last quest is the one of supreme interest to me. 



    All I can say is, before I go off romping on a walk-about in the previously unsullied Martian dust, I want to post an inviolable sign: 



    “Terrorist-Free"


    space renditions courtesy of NASA JPL, click here for the 2001 Mars Oddysey website

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