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Curiosity Day

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Today is Curiosity Day. On August 5, 2012, NASA’s Mars Rover Curiosity landed on the red planet after a procedure so complicated its engineers dubbed it Seven Minutes of Terror.

On November 26, 2011, an unmanned spacecraft carrying the 1,982-pound SUV-sized rover launched from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. After traveling 354 million miles, it entered Mars’ thin atmosphere, its heat shield reaching 1,600 degrees as the craft slowed from 13,000 to 1,000 mph. A supersonic parachute was deployed to decrease the speed further, to 200 mph.

The shield was jettisoned to allow the ship’s radar to “see” the surface. Rockets fired to slow the rate of descent to several feet per second. They couldn’t get too close to the surface because of the dust cloud they would create, potentially damaging Curiosity’s sensitive equipment.

To solve this problem, engineers designed a carrier they called a “sky crane,” which used the rockets to hover at a safe height while gently lowering the rover the rest of the way via cable. (Another nickname: “rover on a rope.”) Once it was deposited on the ground,  the carrier severed the tether and veered away, crashing into the surface several hundred yards away.

The process from atmospheric entry to touchdown took seven minutes. There was a 13.8-minute delay receiving signals at Mission Control; there could be no intervention from Earth, so there was no margin for error. The outcome had already occurred. Everyone involved with the $2.5 billion project waited helplessly until the signal reached them: Curiosity had made it.

The rover is equipped with a small nuclear power plant. Since landing, its instruments have discovered carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur in rock, methane in the atmosphere, and the remains of an ancient streambed. All are indicators that life may have existed there in the past.

It has also sent back some great selfies like this one, combining multiple images taken with the Mars Hand Lens Imager (MAHLI) camera at the end of its robotic arm. ( See how here.)

curiosity day

Another of the rover’s instruments is the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM), which utilizes vibrating plates to move soil samples through the chemistry module. On August 5, 2012, engineers directed them to produce musical notes and “sing” Happy Birthday to Curiosity.

We can’t help but be inspired by people with the vision, ingenuity, and gumption to take on the challenge of the seemingly impossible and not give up until they achieve it. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory uses the phrase “Dare Mighty Things” at the end of its Seven Minutes video. It’s taken from a speech by President Theodore Roosevelt:

Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.

Curiosity was built to last one Martian year, 687 Earth days. As of August 5, 2025, it has been running for 4749 Earth days. We salute everyone who worked on this project. Curiosity is out there on Mars, right now, doing its thing. If we work together, is there anything humanity can’t do?

Happy Curiosity Day!

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US Coast Guard Day

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Today is U.S. Coast Guard Day.

After the Continental Navy disbanded in 1785, no provision existed in the U.S. Constitution for the establishment of a permanent maritime force.

In 1790, Alexander Hamilton, the country’s first Secretary of the Treasury, founded the service that would become the Coast Guard.

Established to enforce tariff laws and manned by crews of civilians, the fleet became known as the system of cutters, named for the type of vessel used: armed ships, usually single-masted, that measured at least 65 feet in length.

From 1798 through 1800, the U.S. and France fought an undeclared naval war known as the “Quasi-War,” precipitated in part by the U.S. reneging on the repayment of loans received from France during the American Revolutionary War.

Congress passed legislation authorizing President John Adams to reestablish the U.S. Navy and conscript revenue cutters from the Treasury Department during the conflict.

In September of 1800, Adams and Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of France, signed a treaty ending hostilities between the two countries.

The Revenue Cutter Service and the United States Life-Saving Service, created in 1848 to save shipwrecked sailors, merged in 1915 to become the U.S. Coast Guard.

Happy U.S. Coast Guard Day!

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Jimmy Hoffa Day

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Today is Jimmy Hoffa Day. On July 30, 1975,  James Riddle “Jimmy” Hoffa disappeared after leaving the Machus Red Fox Restaurant on the outskirts of Detroit, Michigan.

jimmy hoffa day

A labor leader and union activist with strong ties to the Mob, Hoffa presided over the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) from 1958 until 1971, when he was forced to resign in exchange for a pardon from President Richard Nixon.

He’d been in prison since 1967, convicted of attempting to bribe the jury on an extortion case he had ultimately won. To secure early release, Hoffa agreed to relinquish his position and refrain from participating in any union-related activities until 1980, when his full prison sentence would have been completed.

Once free, he refused to curb his ambitions and tried unsuccessfully to sue the government for infringing upon his rights. At the time of his disappearance, Hoffa was at work on an autobiography and fighting to regain the power he had ceded to his right-hand man, Frank Fitzsimmons.

On July 30, 1975, Hoffa went to the Red Fox Restaurant to allegedly meet with three men: a Detroit labor leader, a local mobster, and a major player in New Jersey Teamster politics. Hoffa arrived at 2:00 pm. He called his wife from an outside payphone 30 minutes later to complain that no one had shown up, and he would wait a few more minutes before giving up.jimmy hoffa day

Several sources report seeing him in the parking lot speaking with three men, then getting into a car. A truck driver claimed that a 1975 Mercury Marquis Brougham nearly hit him as he was pulling in, drawing his attention to a man he recognized as Hoffa and something that may have been a rifle or shotgun.

Traces of blood and hair were found in the 1975 Mercury Marquis Brougham owned by Chuckie O’Brien, Hoffa’s foster son. O’Brien’s father was killed on a picket line when the child was only three years old. Hoffa brought him home and raised him as a son.

At the time, DNA testing did not exist. In 2001, the FBI tested the evidence, matching it to hair taken from Hoffa’s hairbrush. O’Brien had previously denied that Hoffa had ever been in his car. He was questioned, but no charges were ever brought against him.

Hoffa was declared legally dead in 1982. Theories abound, but the case remains unsolved.

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National Day of the Cowboy

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national day of the cowboyToday, July 26th, 2025, is the 20th annual National Day of the Cowboy, always observed on the fourth Saturday of July. On March 18, 2016, Idaho became the 11th state to pass a law recognizing the holiday.

The National Day of the Cowboy Organization created this day in 2005 to acknowledge the contributions of the cowboy (and cowgirl) to the history of America.

Celebrate today by watching a classic Western movie, taking in a rodeo, putting on a pair of boots and kicking up your heels, or learning how to throw a lasso.

Have a happy National Day of the Cowboy!

 

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