Give a crap.....

Here's why you should really give a crap about the Mars rover

Drew Magary

NASA’s Perseverance rover landed on Mars last Thursday. Here’s the “Right Stuff”-esque footage from the moment of touchdown, in case you missed it. And you probably did. You steakhead jackass. You were probably messing around on your phone, or eating some chips, or taking a dump. Those are all poor excuses for your oversight and you should feel like s—t. Because America just landed its FIFTH rover on Mars. We’ve never had a Mars rover landing fail. You know why? Because WE KICK ASS.

It helps to remember that. While you’re busy reading stories about Ted Cruz being a negligent prick, America’s science community is doing what it’s been doing for decades: quietly and diligently going about their handiwork to make lives better, to better explain why we exist and to figure out ways for us to continue existing. In a way, it’s good that science operates in the shadows of our everyday horses—t.

I don’t want my scientists distracted. And I don’t want the Eye of Sauron at FOX News falling on the Hubble Space Telescope and going HEY WHY’S THAT EXIST AND CAN’T WE JUST BURN IT? The more science toils in the shadows, the more it can go about its business unobstructed. But when that works pays off, as it did yesterday, I demand you pay attention and show some god damn AWE. Look at this!

That’s Perseverance taking a selfie while skydiving through the Martian atmosphere. Can your Honda Civic do that? It cannot. And this is only the beginning of what our new little best friend can do. It’s got the best camera system of any rover we’ve ever sent to Mars. It’s got a test helicopter. It can make oxygen out of the carbon dioxide in the Martian air. It’s got ground-penetrating radar to see UNDER the Martian surface. To see what Mars is made of.

And it has microphones. Human ears have never heard what the surface of Mars sounds like. Now they will. It’s one of the most vital accomplishments in the history of exploration. We should take everything named after Columbus and name it after Perseverance instead. God, I wish Perseverance had a better name. Sounds like Mayor Pete named it. Regardless, you should bow down and WORSHIP the rover. Unless you’re aiding coronavirus patients or Texas storm victims, whatever you’re doing right now is stupid and pointless compared to what NASA is doing with this machine.

Alas, Perseverance is as vulnerable to the collective short-term memory of Americans as any other momentous occasion, person, cataclysm or viable alien sighting. This is an absent-mindedness that’s been ingrained in people by an unholy combination of social media, poor government and bloodless television networks.

As a result, the United States has grown far too disaffected by space travel ever since the moon landing. After that giant leap, our presence in outer space grew constant. We’ve gone back to the moon (but not since 1972!). We’ve launched the International Space Station. We’ve sent a steady stream of probes and rovers to Mars and to the outer reaches of the solar system. Space travel is normal in the public sphere and, therefore, forgettable.

You should not forget this, and yet I understand, on a certain level, if you have. Americans are too busy being crushed by pandemics and by deliberately engineered wealth inequality and by s—tty "Cruella" trailers to take a moment to enjoy a greater ambition. To dream, if I may be corny for a moment. The public’s sense of wonder was cruelly wrested away as everything else gradually was. My school used to stop class to watch shuttle launches back in the day (Challenger included).

That never happens anymore. I myself didn’t even know Perseverance was landing until Thursday morning. Why? Because I’m an oblivious moron, but also because what chance do I have of noticing significant events in human astronomy when there are entire news cycles devoted to Elon Musk pledging to build pre-flooded bus tubes under Miami, instead of this? I spend so much time looking down at my phone that I forget to look up.

But look what’s up there right now. See past the clouds and the upper atmosphere and leave Earth’s gravitational pull. Sail 128 million miles through the black and see a barren red planet that, in so many ways, resembles our own. Yes, Perseverance is tasked with finding evidence of possible life on Mars. And yes, what it DOES find will likely be scant. Traces of water, fossilized evidence of microbes if we’re outrageously lucky. But, as author Peter Brannen has noted, the planet WE live on has been an entirely different planet — many different planets — for the vast majority of its history. The geological record confirms this. Go layer by layer through the earthen soil and Earth’s myriad identities reveal themselves. Perseverance could reveal similar identities about Mars: the planet it is, the many planets it once was and the many planets it could be. The possibilities are beyond our mortal capacities.

To that end, Perseverance could answer — and in fact, has been charged with helping answer — whether Mars is a planet where man himself could go. Not to live, I just made fun of Elon Musk two paragraphs ago. But to simply VISIT Mars, Perseverance is doing some vital reconnaissance on our behalf. It’s possible, if not likely, that the public’s imagination won’t turn back to the heavens until man sets foot on Mars. If that happens, it will be one of the most important things that’s ever happened.

But until then, everybody back here needs to stop and appreciate the grunt work that NASA — along with other countries’ space agencies — are doing to reach that milestone. Because that grunt work itself has been astonishing. We just put a goddamn helicopter on Mars. Watch that footage of Perseverance touching down again and listen to the joy in that control room and hear the ENORMOUS relief of Swati Mohan, the guidance and controls operations lead.

It takes a lot to get a rise out of your average astrophysicist. They normally have the emotional range of an ear of corn. So why the hell aren’t YOU on your feet right now? You’ve been living in a dystopia for so long that perhaps you forget that you also happen to live in another, far more astonishing vision of the future. Don’t look away from it. Don’t leave all the words for this to scientists when YOU could be the poet they need for the journey.