Wonder how this will boost muzzie self esteem in light of NASA’s new goal of making them feel good about themselves as the wun has ordered?
Ironically, it takes more energy to put a space craft in orbit around Mercury than Pluto. It takes more fuel to slow down a craft that has fallen from the earth’s orbit to Mercury’s orbit down to a speed that will allow it to stay in orbit around Mercury than it does to toss a space craft from the earth’s orbit to Pluto, especially with a boost from Jupiter.
I’ve been fascinated by this mission, for some reason. Maybe because we haven’t paid that much attention to Mercury in the past- except for one of the Mariner missions.
It isn’t going to happen anytime soon, but I’d love to see some lander shots of the Mercurian regolith with the large, glaring disk of the Sun in the sky. Or some surface shots of the massive escarpment that I’ve seen in the orbital photos.
The monochrome starkness and extremes of climate kind of remind me of the prison planet Crematoria, from Vin Diesel’s movie ‘The Chronicles of Riddick’. You *don’t* want to be outside when the sun comes up, although I doubt that a planet like that could sustain a breathable atmosphere.
I saw the live coverage of the orbital insertion a few days ago. Pretty exciting stuff I tell ya.