This past weekend I had a chance to visit and old friend in it's forever home.

Seeing Dusty, Spirit and Opportunity's Earth based copy, in the National Air & Space Museum definitely had me a little misty eyed but with a smile.

I spent many years as the testbed lead responsible for Dusty's health and safety and lots of shifts operating it in the testbed, I definitely have an attachment to this specific rover. Dusty may not have gone to Mars, but it was the only MER I have seen with my own eyes.

I have been rewatching Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. I'm into Season 7.

The back to back excellent episodes "The Siege of AR-558" and "It's Only A Paper Moon" still hit hard, but even harder than before.

The both feature a cover of the song "I'll Be Seeing You." Which also happens to be the the last wakeup song for the Opportunity rover (a different version).

In the episode the song is linked to trauma and loss and starting to recover. It's somewhat the same for those of us that worked MER.