Mars Versus Mount Washington

The atmosphere on Mars is a hundred times thinner than that of Earth.

NASA's Mars Curiosity Rover has measured summer temperatures as high as 70 Fahrenheit or 20 Centigrade at the Red Planet's equator, but as soon as the sun sets, the temperature can plummet to -100 F and -175F is not usual in the winter months at the fourth planet's pole.

Bcck in 2017 the daytime high at Mars' Gale Crater as recorded by NASA's curiosity Rover, was 17.6 degrees F or about the reading on the thermometer outside the window in Fort Lee, NJ .

Mount Washington hit -100 with the wind chill and Old Agiocochook came close to beating the lowest natural temperature of −128.6 °F at the Soviet Vostok Station in Antarctica on July 21, 1983.

There is no way to calculate the wind chill on Mars.

Just life-threatening cold.

Same as on Agiocochook, but people live there.

Weather men, because Mount Washington breeds weather.

A lot of it.

One day we will be on Mars.

Dogs too.

Like there are dogs on Mount Washington.

Defend Earth Women

Beware of the Martians.

They are only after one thing.

And it isn't KFC.

No Rain In Sight

As far as I can ascertain from my research there has been no rain on the planet Mars for over billions of years, although the Xanthe Terra highlands on the equator shows signs of water flow. The heaviest rainfall on Earth has been recorded in the following locations according to Answers.com; LLoro, Colombia, averages 13,300mm (523.6 in) per year Mawsynram, Meghalaya, India, averages 11,873 mm (467 in) Mt Waialeale, Hawai'i, USA, annual average 11,684 mm (460 in) Cherrapunji, also in Meghalaya; yearly avg 11,430 mm (450 in) Tutunedo, Choco, Colombia, annual avg of 11394 (448 in) New York City weathermen predicted heavy rain for 5pm this evening. As we pulled the jewelry from the front window, my partner at Smith and Love Diamonds shook his head and said, "Fantastic, I get to walk home in the rain and I don't have an umbrella." "Don't worry, it will hold off." "How do you know?" Hlove trusted meteorologists more than me. "Because my fingers aren't crackling." I had fought about 200 times over my life. Not all of these bouts were one on one and not all of them were entered into the W column, but I always threw a punch. "Busted knuckles are a damned good barometer." "If you say so." Hlove is a guitarist, but he's also a fighter. "Clench our fist." "And?" "You hear anything?" "Nothing?" "So you'll get home high and dry." "I don't know about high." HLove's doctors had ordered him to take the cure. We had never drank together and I never say anything about his choice. It's life versus death and not a question of wet feet. "But if you say so I'll be dry." We shut the safe and left the exchange. I was the last to go, because it took me three minutes to find my cell phone. The train ride to Fort Greene was twenty-three minutes on the B. I exited at Atlantic Terminal and stepped outside onto Hanson Place. The rain had yet to come and looking out my window at 8:05 there's none in sight. High and dry. Except my the glass of wine in my hand is expecting a downpour. "The drops of rain make a hole in the stone, not by violence, but by oft falling." Lucretius Same goes for wine, since all liquids find the fastest path to the sea.

Curiosity On Mars

Last week NASA landed the planet rover CURIOSITY on Mars. The nuclear-powered vehicle suffered little damage to its recording and testing devices, however the scientists at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab have set the CURIOSITY on 'dream' mode during a four-day upload of software for its initial exploration of the Gala Crater. The mission system manager didn't say what kind of dreams the rover was experiencing in the shut-down, but I guess that they would have to be almost seering visions into the future and past with each update to its brain. Once awake then the JPL will program the CURIOSITY'S destination as Mount Sharp Scientists have been poring over pictures of the landing site snapped by Curiosity and spacecraft circling overhead. The pebble-strewn terrain where the rover landed appeared easy to traverse but the landscape gets more rugged the closer to Mount Sharp. The base of the mountain is five miles away. The rover will arrive in the foothills by Christmas. Its top speed is 300 yards a day. Slow, but not going nowhere is slower.

Earthlings Go Home

Walt Disney Pictures lost about $160 millions on JOHN CARTER OF MARS, despite worldwide ticket sales of almost $300,000,000. Mediocre reviews of the sci-fi adaptation of a Edgar Rice Burroughs' novel in tough economic times doomed the movie at the box office. BBC film critic Mark Kermode stated, "The story telling is incomprehensible, the characterisation is ludicrous, the story is two and a quarter hours long and it's a boring, boring, boring two and a quarter hours long." During my stay in Thailand, I thought about purchasing the DVD, but every vendor said the film was a bomb, however I endured the movie on a flight between Bangkok and Tokyo on August 6, the same day NASA was landing the nuclear-powered Curiosity by sky hook on the planet Mars. As part of the $2.5 billion Mars Science Laboratory mission the rover's dowser will will insert neutrons underneath the surface of the Gale Crater to seek out signs of habitability, ie water on our distant neighbor. So far the Curiosity has yet to discover ice or any artifacts from Burroughs' lost civilization of Barsoom, but the search continues for NASA and man. The cost of this exploration is approximately two weeks of the War in Afghanistan. Bring the troops home.