Going 'Round Again

The Mars Rover Opportunity has been working close to the equator. Spirit has been about 10° south latitude, well within the tropics. But while 'winter' may be a precise geologic term, 'winter weather' can be relative. At -155°F at night, Spirit is chilling on a dark-colored, heat absorbing rock. It limped there on 5 wheels; the right front one won't work. It can still maneuver but for covering longer stretches of ground they drive it in reverse. The tractor does the same thing sometimes, but that's a transmission problem, not a wheel problem. I'd be of no help to them at all with getting it fixed.

Anyway, plans for Spirit are to wait through the winter in place, doing some atmospheric data collection, dust analysis, and solar observations during middays. It can do low-power projects while waiting for batteries to recharge slowly.

Opportunity, on the other hand, has cruised almost 10 miles to reach the rim of the huge crater Victoria. Here's a spectacular view from Duck Bay on the crater's edge. Shortly, both rovers will stop sending communications to wait as Mars passes on the other side of the sun from Earth. When Mars reemerges (when we come around the sun and start to catch up to it) the discoveries at Victoria should be amazing. Victoria is 200+ feet deep (Endurance was 20), half a mile wide and Steve Squires said, "Exploring Victoria is something we joked and fantasized about but never really thought we could realistically get to it." To wit: "This is the absolutely highest-priority destination we could have reached."

You can get an idea of the importance of the Victoria site by viewing Opportunity's traverse map.

Spirit and Opportunity have lasted 950 Martian days (just a touch longer than Earth days). They were supposed to last 90. How's that for high performance in longevity? On that note, I started college again last week. OK. Maybe that's not quite as impressive.

It's different than when I last attended. I download the lecture in PP off the class website a few days before. There's a class chatroom. Students take notes on their laptops and there's wireless internet available in the lecture hall. To be honest, I actually knew these things. Part of the fun of growing older is looking at the present through eyes you had a long time ago. Maybe that's to gain insights on the present, maybe that's to pretend our eyes are younger. That I don't know.

I'll be taking a light load, one class per quarter in viticulture at UC Davis. Degree pursuits TBD; technically I'm a continuing undergrad. My advisor recommended introductory even though most content will be review.

So I'm in with a bunch of freshmen. On the first day, our professor asked, "who is here for there first college class ever?" and about half the class raised their hands. He then posed "who is here because they want to learn a lot about wine?" This time more than half volunteered. He then offered two definitions: "Enology is the art and science of making wine, while viticulture is the science of the grapevine. This is VEN2, Introduction to Viticulture. It is botany. You will not learn a lot about wine in this class. If you wish to learn a lot about wine you need to drop this class and enroll in VEN3, Introduction to Winemaking." Professors making classes smaller, some things never change.

UCD is world renowned for its Viticulture and Enology program. I ended up here kind of by accident. I am twice the age of the folks in my class (I will respectfully not call them kids... yet) but I'll rather not think of it that way.

I'm just able to do things I never realistically thought I could get to.