Absolutely gorgeous. Note to "Chuckles" Johnson: Hey, Bro, how's it feel to have a machine take better pictures than you? A lot better.

Pictures like that remind me of how far we have not gone towards space exploration.

There is where our future is, not at the bottom of this gravity well.

It's saddening.

Hey GV:

Cooler than anything in Avater.

Brother Hub tells me it's getting hotter on Mars too. Maybe we can expand our cap & tax plan to compensate the Martian victims of our greedy destruction of the solar system's climate.

I'll tweet Al.

Happy New Year hugs,

M

My face is so red: Avater?

It's hard to tipe without thumbs.

M

Spirit

It was a big job to ask
of such little gears and chips
and shiny foil.
To race alone through nothingness,
to taste the red dust
of a land no soul calls
home.

But, like the little pill bug
that entertains an Earthling
with his plodding in the rain,
you roll on.

But, if you stop,
burdened by the dust
or some unseen crack
in the cosmic sidewalk,
who is there to pick you up,
dust you off,
or place you gently
under a leaf?

I wish I found these pictures beautiful. I find them wonderful, yes - but the vast, uninhabitable landscape and the diminished sun that is half again as far from that planet as Earth . . .

I celebrate the fact of the remarkable technology and the men who accomplished this feat of exploration.

Therein lies the beauty - for me.