Mastodawn

@65dBnoise

#gathersnomoss
#idiom

@PaulHammond51
🙂 Speaking of gathering moss, if this rover has any chance to gather some, that'll be during the next solar conjunction, on Jan 9, 2026. 🤓

Pity we can't see how #Ingenuity has fared so far, though I doubt there could be any moss gathering at that sandy beach resort with that continuous sandblasting in the Neretva Vallis canyon … 🙃

@65dBnoise

I live in hope that once the rover has finished its activities outside the crater, that it returns to the sample cache inside the crater to place 'all' the samples in one place. On the way to that cache, they'd have to pass close to Ingenuity. I realize it's a long shot, but one can live in hope.

I never look forward to conjunction , the image withdrawal symptoms are never good, and it always lasts longer than they announce... ⏰

@PaulHammond51
In a horror scenario, not all of those going on that mandatory vacation during the conjunction will be coming back to work afterwords. That's NASA, lately.

The first layoffs during the Biden administration occurred on Feb 6, 2024 and then on Nov 12, the same year. Winter seems to be a convenient time for laying off people working in scientific space projects, and the best time in a year for boosting "space economy" for the billionaires.

@65dBnoise

I can not begin to imagine the mood inside NASA during those layoffs and also to this day. I have worked inside large organisations that laid off many folk, but the skill sets that they are letting go is so, so short sighted, it's utter madness.

@PaulHammond51
Worse, it's planned. That's the essence of the so called "space economy"; private companies will take over haphazardly, as we've seen with those "successful" Moon "landings", and even that will happen only under contract with government, because there is no other way for them to make a profit out of outer space. Unless one believes in fairy tails of #SciFi.

"Space economy" is the complete enshitification of space science as we've known it.

@65dBnoise
It's sickening to watch as an outsider! I can not imagine seeing it from the inside.