Letter from NASA: Some Things You Need to Know About the Mars Rover

The last time the whole world went tense for about an hour over a space mission was when Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and Chet from Weird Science all prepared to meet their doom aboard the ill-fated Apollo 13 mission to the Moon. That was hard to watch for the old NASA guys, especially for former astronaut Fred Haise, who, despite being a Harvard-educated Marine fighter pilot-cum-space pioneer, was made out to look like a total puss. The real Apollo 13 was assuredly spooky—don't get me wrong—but you can't hear an exploding oxygen tank in space, and I have a hostile bladder, so I can't even begin to comprehend the real thing: That's Hollywood's job. Here at NASA, in the trenches, things are a little different.

For example, the infernal seven minutes that await Curiosity, this season's Mars rover, and the first vehicle to land in guided-entry mode since Apollo, goes so far beyond the realm of abject fear, that not even a Ron Howard vehicle with orchestral accompaniment could ever do it justice. Here are the big risks and the bare facts of this, NASA's most ambitious mission to Mars yet:

That's why, in addition to parachutes and anti-lock brakes, we've outfitted Curiosity with cutting-edge headlights like the kind you’d find on a German sports car, just so's everybody on Mars knows to get out of the way if the supersonic chutes and the sky crane shit the bed.

Look, we may be unimaginative, but we're not dense. In the unlikely event of Martians "jacking" our rover, we've sat Curiosity down with VHS copies of both Robocop and Porky's II, which are, if they are anything, effective primers on how we might deal with unruly high-school perverts on Mars.

Martians, if you're out there, do not try to rob Curiosity.1 If you want something, write a note and stick it in one of Curiosity's cracks or whatever, and we'll try to get back to you ASAP. But please remember that NASA also has no money.

Think of it as like an even more confusing Optimus Prime, and instead of guns, Curiosity has pyrotechnic "chargers" and also that sky crane, which will hopefully be able to say things in a funny robot voice or extract, you know, jewels and gold.

And you'll be pleased to know that we don't anticipate a repeat of that old, rogue war horse, Odyssey—you remember, the Mars rover outfitted with tridents to catch flying Martian pizzas?

Before you start howling about "why not just normal forks to catch the Mars pizza?" you should recall that Odyssey was launched in 2001, when many of our top engineers weren't far removed from just being thingies in their mother's behinds. That's really a nice way of saying that the 2001 Rover team wasn't quite as imaginative as we are. And to demonstrate this, during the sixth minute, when things are really getting overwrought and juicy, two huge nets will propel out from Curiosity's throwback gull-wing doors and we'll be able to scoop up any spare change and valuables that happen to flying through the atmosphere, with which we'll then be able to buy Martian food, all civilized like, and perhaps wire some of that money back to the lab, so you know, we can keep our jobs. You see, we're not without our inspired moments.

The moment of truth. All of our dreams, our hard work and, I'm not afraid to say, our very souls hinge on 500,000 lines of hard-fought code. As a last resort, and to illustrate the incredible dedication of the men and women of NASA, every single NASA employee has filled out an Entry Descent and Landing (EDL) questionnaire in order to eliminate any unknowns and mitigate this, the most terrifying seven minutes in all of space. And while suggested redundancies and proposed fail-safe implementations ranged from, "Cheeseburgers" to "…a fuckin' Ted Nugent bumper sticker"…" to "check under hood," I feel that it just may be our lack of imagination that could save us.

For instance, imagine a worst-case scenario during EDL in which Curiosity finds herself about to land on the Moon by accident…What are we going to do?! No clue. But, that's not the point. The point is: I don't think that just because Apollo 13 ended in real life without them making it to the Moon precludes there from being an Apollo 13 II: The Landing starring Curiosity, who makes a sudden appearance as the lunar module, while the old Apollo 13 just sort of floats off into a meteor. But that's why Ron Howard is there in Hollywood, where dreams are made, and why I'm stuck here, where I can't even get anybody to make me a fucking coffee.

1 If you are human and on Mars, then please also note that the Rover carries no cash. Also, how did y'all get up there?

• Space Oddity: My Weird Year with NASA
• The Little-Known 9/11 Memorial on Mars
• Mars One Plans on Colonizing the Red Planet with a Reality Show
• Motherboard TV: Spaced Out: Making Mars with Tom Sachs