Mars Rover Looking Forward To Welcome Home Party

13th January 2004

After spending over a week on the surface of Mars, the NASA Probe ‘Spirit’ has expressed its gratitude for being sent on such an important mission and is glad it is amongst the very few to be successful and make it to the planet in one piece.

Following the loss of the British Beagle 2 lander the difficulty of landing a probe on Mars was fresh in everyone’s mind and when Spirit relayed the images showing it had landed successful NASA was jubilant and a small impromptu celebration was thrown in Mission Control.

“Of course I was sad to miss out on the landing celebrations,” the probe expressed in a recent data transmission, “But being on Mars meant I obviously couldn’t attend. I’ve heard it was a real blast though. Dave, the scientist responsible for designing a small microchip in my robotic arm, got quite drunk and did some weird Martian space dance. I’ve yet to meet any Martians to verify its authenticity but he constantly used the phrase ‘out of this world’ so I’m guessing it was probably not that accurate.”

Spirit is set to be joined by its twin rover, Opportunity, in less than 2 weeks time. Spirit had little to say on the issue.

“To be honest, I’m glad that we’re landing on opposite sides of the planet. I’ve never told anyone this before but shortly before we left we had quite a major falling out. I know they say blood is thicker than water but I’m a robotic space probe and don’t have blood. But if he’s listening, I’m sure that Sharon misses me more than she misses him.”

Spirit has already proved to be one of NASA’s most successful probes, and is virtually certain to surpass the achievements of the Sojourner probe from 1997. But whatever level of success Spirit enjoys it is looking forward to one event more than all others:

“The Welcome Home Party!!” was the response given, and Spirit continued to explain, “If Dave got that drunk on an impromptu party in the alcohol free zone of Mission Control I can’t wait to see how drunk he gets down at the local nightclubs in Houston. I was so looking forward to it that the NASA artwork boys made an artists impression of what the party would be like.

“I hope it’s not too far off; I don’t want the clothes I bought to be out of fashion. I keep asking the NASA boys when they will be bringing me back home but so far they’ve been rather mute on the subject.”