this morning NASA abandoned their mars rover Opportunity (aka Oppy) because it (she) got hit by a storm on Mars and it knocked her camera and wheels out and her last words to the team were “my battery is low and it is getting cold”. I know she’s a machine but I’m devastated. Oppy is the one who discovered water on Mars. RIP oppy ily space baby
they didn’t abandon her!! they tried eight months to reach her!!!! as their last farewell to her yesterday they played her “I’ll be seeing you” by Billie Holiday:
“I’ll find you in the morning sun
And when the night is new
I’ll be looking at the moon
But I’ll be seeing you”
They love her so much and they tried so hard!!!
Oh man, It doesn’t end there.
This isn’t the first song NASA sent Opportunity. They had a playlist:
It’s on Spotify, it’s called “Opportunity, wake up!“
This is what’s great about NASA and it’s what’s great about people. These are world-class engineers. When they sent a rover to another planet they could have easily looked at it as just another scientific tool. But people don’t do that. We can and will get emotionally attached to the most inanimate of objects. We can and will anthropomorphize anything. And frankly Opportunity’s camera mast looks like a little face with eyes and everything, so why not?
So they started calling it her.
They nicknamed her Oppy.
They told her to take a selfie not long ago.
After 15 years of Oppy flipping the double bird to her original 90 day life expectancy, when a planet-spanning dust storm finally knocked her out and she stopped responding to the engineer’s wake-up messages, they started playing music for her.
And after 8 months and almost 1000 unanswered wake-up messages, when it was finally clear that Oppy was never going to wake up, the last thing these world-class NASA engineers did for their little rover on another planet
Was play her a love song
oh my gosh… sometimes I recognize that Humanity kind of sucks… But I live for content and feelings like this. Thank you, NASA.
(Source: mytearsrricochet, via epiphanyx7)
Challenge #02978-H055: I Got'cha Something
On docking at the station, the first thing the crew noticed was that it was Silly Season. The second thing that they noticed was that, while they had been being distracted by the colorful streamers on the walls and the semi-random bursts of soft flower petals falling from above, their human had vanished. Hopefully, whatever souvenirs they picked up for pack bonded crew-members would be benign this time…. – Anon Guest
Silly Season is not a specific time on any planet’s calendar. Indeed, it does not appear in any planetary calendar at all. Planets have the progression of seasons and regular festivals as part of the cycle of weather patterns. It gives a form of structure to the Humans living there. Silly Season only ever happens on ships or stations, where there are no seasons and the festivals are nominally present in shore leave.
Humans despise monotony. Once every day is the same and easily forgotten, then some kind of internal pressure hits the collective Human subconscious until something… breaks loose. The Human Hive Mind unanimously screams, “Flakk this,” and then every single one of them… goes silly. Humans, it seems, need to party. They need variety to spice up their lives.
It is unpredictable, unplanned, and unorganised. It was also, amazingly, mostly harmless. The Humans involved danced, sang, threw harmless things at each other, and generally created a form of benevolent mayhem that also meant the Cleaners got a feast as well. Many of the Humans got drunk, but very few of them were dangerously so. It became something of a tourist attraction amongst certain groups, though there was never an opportunity to sell tickets. There was barely enough warning for visiting crews to protect or guard their Ships’ Humans from joining the melee in progress.
[Check the source to see the full story]
(Source: peakd.com)
your-friendly-neighbohood-black:
My roomba is scared of thunderstorms
I was sitting at my desk just a few minutes ago, drawing, and a really loud crack of thunder went off–no power surges or anything, just thunder–and my roomba fled from its dock and started spinning in circles
I currently now have an active roomba sitting quietly on my lap
Humans will pack bond with anything.
I had a teenage girl come into my tea shop with her mother the other night. She purposely grabbed a teamaker in the most crunched-up looking box on the shelf (got banged around in shipment) and carried it protectively over to the counter. “If something’s in a damaged box I have to get it because I’m afraid no one else will love it,” she laughed nervously.
Not only will humans pack bond with anything, the empathy level of adolescent girls in particular likely has puppy-saving, world hunger-solving, war-ending powers.
I once saw a really bumpy lime at the grocery store, just a real ugly fruit. Later that night my boyfriend & I were driving home from rehearsal at like 11:30pm & passed the grocery store & I stared crying & he said “is it that lime? Do you want to go back and get it?” And I nodded and pulled the car around and bought the lime.
I saw this post once but IT GOT EVEN BETTER
(via teribite)
Challenge #02886-G329: Parallels in Babysitting
(My husband, talking about our children’s habit of climbing on me before falling asleep)
“The little ones climb the big ones” – Anon Guest
Even on Havenworlds, there is one rule followed by nature. If you want to keep your young safe, keep them close. Some prefer the strategy of over-breeding so that some survive to adulthood, but that’s more of a Deathworlder thing. Given this fact, it is small surprise that the young of any species seek closeness with those who are older.
Just how they do so is generally dependant on the mobility of the young concerned. Thusly, when Fl'th'pt trusted Human Zori with hir clutch, the Human reacted positively when the little tentacled darlings instinctually began to clamber towards his head.
“Aaawww… I’m their safety zone,” cooed Human Zori. He petted the lead climber’s head as the baby reached his chest. “Hewwo darlin’. Hewwo.”
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02872-G315: Small Thrills, Big Day
A human’s friend has been begging them for months to take them to Earth to a local event. Something that all humans could enjoy in one form or another. Something that was fun for all humans but didn’t involve large explosions or things being destroyed. The human thought for a long moment and smiled, they had the most perfect idea. And that is how this level one havenworlder ended up sitting and trying deep fried cheese curds and onion rings for the first time, while sitting at a county fair. The human danced in a line dance, the havenworlder tried a merry-go-round, and there was fun and laughter late into the twilight hours. – DaniAndShali
The Podunk County Fair didn’t have fireworks. The budget didn’t include it. What they did have was a car with comically oversized tyres squashing defunct vehicles with an option for plumes of smoke from its superstructure. It was not the world’s hottest destination for thrillseekers. Well. Not for Human thrillseekers.
Only humanity could commodify this event by splashing HAVENWORLDER SAFE! in large, friendly letters all over the flyers. The result was an optimistic spiel from Companion Fluuph towards Human Ford, who was there for a holiday and family time.
The morning of the week-long Podunk County Fair dawned, and Human Ford put on her shoulder saddle after breakfast. She announced, “I’m takin’ Chicken to the fair, any o’ y'all comin’?” A small avian cogniscent like Fluuph may have been insulted by the nickname of “Chicken”, but Fluuph was used to Humans and their peculiar ways. Besides, they did rather resemble the fluffier breeds of Terran domestic avians.
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02816-G259: I’ll Try to be Nice
“Nobody has to die today.” – Anon Guest
You can say a lot with small words. Wisdom comes in those with multiple uses. Five words can be a promise, a threat, a reassurance, or an absolute and utter lie. Humans use all of them at once, and pretend they knew what was the winner after the fact.
Unless the Ships’ Human makes it very, very clear which one they’re using, it’s just better to play along. In the Case of the Valiant Whatsit and their Ships’ Human Ey, it is almost always a threat.
Such as now, when Ey is facing off a novice band of Vorax raiders. It’s easy to tell they’re novices because one of them said, “There’s twelve of us and one of them, how could we not win?” If they’re lucky, they’ll survive finding out.
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]
Challenge #02794-G237: We Do Mean Anything
Me: Bears are f****** terrifying. Some are bulletproof, their bones are strong enough to last though hibernation and are maul me to death with in a matter of seconds.
Also me: https://ifunny.co/fun/QrPytnfe7?s=cl – Anon Guest
[AN: Video shows a Russian dude (I presume, the dialogue sounds Russian) playing with his FULLY GROWN PET BEAR. How fortunate we are, indeed, to live in a world full of creatures who love to be petted]
Humans will arrive with pets. Most Havenworlders are advised to insist Human’s pets are safely contained. Mostly because Humans take one look at a big predator twice their body-weight or more and say, “Aaw, that looks like a real cutie!” and take one home with them. Don’t be mislead by the smaller predators. They’re all quick, armed, and contain some truly interesting pathogens[1].
This pet arrived on a float pallet with a safety fence. There was a cushioned pad underneath the giant beast, and cautionary labels on the fencing. These included Predator Containment, Deathworlder, Live Animal, Do Not Disturb, and Human Pet, Do Not Harm. None of these warnings were reassuring in any way.
It was enormous, of a mass easily four times that of Human Dran’s. The reason why it was on a float pallet was that it was sound asleep. “Don’t worry about waking Pookie too hard,” reassured Human Dran. “She’s a sound sleeper when she’s hibernating.”
[Be sure to visit internutter (dot) org for a link to the rest of this story, and details on how to support this artist. Or visit peakd (dot) com (slash at) internutter for the stories at their freshest]