At approximately 6 a.m. this morning, after many tense hours of nail-biting and caffeine overindulgence, the technicians at NASA's Mars Colonization Initiative Center were pleased to announce that the third Mars rover, better known as the Karl Rover, had landed successfully on the Martian surface.
"We're very pleased," said NASA's chief scientist Max Frooberg after the first transmission was received from the rover. "It all went very smoothly, and we're looking forward to the pizza party that we were promised." Excitement filled the air of the cramped control center as electronics specialist Jack Freehouse chanted, gyrated, and poured decaf into his slacks during what he refers to as his cleansing ritual.
"This year's been really rough on Jack," noted NASA spokeswoman Susan Harper. Jack lost his wife due to what many NASA employees refer to as NMS, or "No Mojo Syndrome", a condition that has plagued the NASA community since the Apollo 13 mishap.
As the first transmissions were being received, Mr. Frooberg elaborated on the Karl Rover's role: "This is really a fact finding mission. We want to know what we're up against out there for future missions and we're going to be digging up and studying a lot of dirt to find out. We're hoping that Karl will pull through; there are a lot of rovers out there but the Karl Rover can dig up dirt like no other. If this mission is unsuccessful, we might just have to try and create some dirt on our own."
The rover is expected to explore the Martian surface for the better part of a month, and then disintegrate as it falls prey to the temperature extremes of the Red Planet; there is talk among scientists, however, that suggests the Karl Rover will outlive its usefulness. "It's quite possible that years from now the Karl Rover will still be transmitting even though all we want it to do is shut the hell up," said Bill Nye, acclaimed science guy and founder of the Rochester Institute for Martian Studies. "It is also quite possible that everything we receive from Karl will be nothing more than over-hyped, counter-productive transmissions that will do nothing but harm the science community."
President Bush plans to visit the center later this month to discuss the possibility of an interplanetary arms trade, and what that would mean to the war on terror.
