NASA brings the Brave Little Toaster to life … and death (sniff, sniff)

OK, so today is like the last day of my new dear personal friend, the brave and accomplished MarsPhoenix rover.

Like so many of my online acquaintances, we’ve never actually met. I followed his courageous actions around the surface of Mars from a distance … to put it mildly. The MarsPhoenix has a feed on twitter. For those of you who don’t know Twitter — it’s a cross between haiku and blogging. You can say whatever you want — in 140 characters.

Mrs. CollateralDamage tipped me to twitter — which I use despite not having a clue what it’s good for. I have yet to see any explanation for a practical use of it. Be that as it may. Mrs. CD also told me about this feed from the MarsPhoenix and how it was goofy and fun. “The MarsPhoenix” posted a series of items about its daily activities and answered questions and, while you really knew it was someone at NASA, it worked.

When the damn thing won a “twittie” award (by, for and about twits is all I can guess) it posted:

3 Twitties? Wow, I’m overwhelmed, especially being up against so many other great nominees. Thank you all for your votes, I’m very humbled. 1:06 PM Oct 1st from web

Wondering if @twitties can afford the postage to send me the award plaques? And deciding on which wall to hang them… 😮 Uh oh… 1:37 PM Oct 1st from web

So you get the idea.

Well today was the day MarsPhoenix powered down and darn if it didn’t get all WALL*E on me and choke me up. We’ve known this was going to happen for a while.

My team has a good plan to keep me going even as power levels drop. Bits of me will have to turn off, starting today. http://is.gd/53bD 3:29 PM Oct 28th

The heater for the arm will have to turn off to save power. So I’m parking the arm’s needle-like probes into the dirt before then. 3:35 PM Oct 28th from web in reply to LW_Will

Not sure how soon arm will freeze after 1st heater is turned off. Depends on the weather. But saving that power (250 watt hrs/sol) is good. 3:46 PM Oct 28th from web

Apparently I was not the only one who had grown attached to our dear little PR stunt as the next post reads:

Whoa, so much sadness about the heater turning off. Thx, and I hope to hang on several more weeks so you will be hearing more from me 🙂 4:55 PM Oct 28th from web

Then things started to get really teary:

I’m not mobile, @gjain81, so here I’ll stay. My mission will draw to an end soon, and I can’t imagine a greater place to be than here. about 11 hours ago from web

I should stay well-preserved in this cold. I’ll be humankind’s monument here for centuries, eons, until future explorers come for me 😉 about 11 hours ago from web

I may go to sleep soon, @lordavon . But my “Lazarus mode” might allow me wake up now and then for short times during next few weeks. about 2 hours ago from web

Many questions about next Martian summer and will I wake up? It is beyond expectations. But if it happens you’ll be among the 1st to know. about 2 hours ago from web

And finally

In case we don’t get this chance again, thank you all so much for the questions, comments & good wishes over the mission. It’s been awesome. 36 minutes ago from web

Take care of that beautiful blue marble out there in space, our home planet. I’ll be keeping an eye from here. Space exploration FTW!* 4 minutes ago from web

OMG as the kids say. I fell for it. Sniffle. Sniffle. Do not go quiet into that good night old friend and all that. The next time the Brave Little Toaster visits Mars I’ll ask it to put down some flowers.

“This is ground control to Major Tom … can you hear me Major Tom?”

I’m not sure MarsPhoenix passed the Turing test as much as I failed it.

Well done NASA marketing!

*FTW= For the win. I had to google it.

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