Life on Mars...

...at last. Curiosity has landed without a hitch and has even tweeted its outcome…aah! Congratulations to all at NASA. At this juncture, I am going to refer to Curiosity as she. The craft is named after the human quality that we consider particularly female. Just think of Eve and Pandora, Psyche and Lot’s wife. There has been a lot of criticism levelled at the voyage, chiefly that it has cost a lot of money, and what is the purpose of it, anyway? But is there anything female about curiosity? Curiosity on Earth got us out of trees and into caves, from caves into skyscrapers. Curiosity on Mars will remind us constantly that there is another world out there. It will remind us that we are not here to stew in our own earthly juices for as long as our species survives. I look forward to all the discoveries that that cutie little buggy is going to beam back. You know, if this were a movie, Curiosity would meet a machine from another world, fall in love and produce an entire family of hybrid Curiosity-type machines…aah! Cue David Bowie..