xeno's already blogged #loc's live 'coverage' of the Phoenix lander descent here. One of the chief joys of the internet is that an event like this can be shared with interested parties around the globe - in this case Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Germany. Four people in four different cities in two countries watching a lot of very bright people who did very well in math wait with baited breath for a chunk of metal the human race flung into space to hopefully land successfully on another planet.

Which it did.

At one point during a break in events, one of the media staff interviewed the head of JPL. I mentioned that he should have said something to the effect of "Mars landers keep failing because we keep trying different things instead of going with what we KNOW works." Seconds later the guy went on to say that Phoenix's descent/landing design is, in effect, an evolution of the Viking program. This makes perfect sense to me - until space reaches a point where it's become recreational, it's probably best to go forward by evolving what works.

It may have been seven minutes of terror for mission control, but I can state with certainty that it was a terror - and exultation - felt round the world.

Marsholduhr courtesy of _Lasar.