Author Archives: G.A. Spike Jones

It was a nerve-wracking day, waiting to hear if Perseverance made it safely to the surface of Mars. That landing sequence is a long row of dominoes, all of which must fall precisely in order to carry that lander down. Controls engineers all over the planet were most impressed, I can assure you. Now isContinue reading “Perseverance is down”

We can indulge in a little thought experiment which helps illustrate the concept of meta-stable equilibria. Earth orbits the sun at a distance of about 150 million kilometers, which provides a path around the sun conveniently close to about a billion kilometers, a path which the planet traverses each year. The planet travels thru spaceContinue reading “Why, that bad old Vader…”