A Spec in Time Series

Yeah, getting fooled is fun. We need to love good jokes and pranks. Creative and smart ones are always the best. It would be easy to get me this week as sleep has continued to be elusive. I’m becoming used to the emptiness and the quietness of the house without Sammy and Gandalf, they are missed but never forgotten. Another thing that is going to sleep forever is NASAs lunar explorer: Odysseus. Even with Odie being slightly lost, crashing down on its side – it still gave a valiant effort and sent some information home.

Odies final transmission home, is an amazing photo.

NASA: first off, congratulations on the accomplishment. Odysseus is the first U.S. lander to make it to the moon in 50 years. This is an awesome event in what is, unfortunately, the new space race. Now the sun has gone down for the long lunar night and the remaining solar panel needed to power the transmitters is dark. There is no way that Odie makes it through the dark. Odysseus is lost to the world.

Why am I not surprised? As I watched the landing of this craft all I could do was laugh. The irony was just too much for me. That in mind, I present you with my “I’m too nice so I won’t send it” letter.

Dear NASA,

If you plan on continuing to name your space crafts after mythological heroes, gods, demi-gods and titans – you might want to do a little research. Learn who they are along with what they did. Down the path of writing a Spec in Time, I have spent hours, to be honest days of hours, researching the Greek pantheon. I wanted to make sure that I found, just the right moon, planet and other celestial objects needed. I also did the same for the names of my characters. Most of these names mean something and are closely related to the needs of the plot.

You could have looked at the CliffsNotes, or today’s version, Wikipedia(ugh). Ten minutes would have told you that Odysseus had some bad habits and very bad luck. For example: wandering off course; shipwrecking; lying down on rocky terrains; and being blacked out. Sometimes we project an outcome we don’t want and the fates are watching. Odysseus was a hero of sorts and he did indeed do years of exploration and traveling. Yet, he was perhaps, not the best at these things.

It took Odysseus 20 years to report back home. It will most likely take another 20 years for humans to retrieve Odie to bring its full story home. Let’s just hope there is no tree attached to its unbroken leg.*

Have a great month.

Pooh

* “Odysseus has now revealed himself in all his glory (with a little makeover by Athena); yet Penelope cannot believe that her husband has really returned and tests him by ordering her servant Euryclea to move the bed in their wedding-chamber. Odysseus protests that this cannot be done since he made the bed himself and knows that one of its legs is a living olive tree.”   –  copied from Wikipedia