On July the 4th, I was able to share a 'net experience with approximately 40 million other eager Webnauts, who apparently all requested the same page from the NASA Web server at the same time. In about the same amount of time it took the Nissan Pathfinder to actually reach Mars, I was able to get the message returned to my browser: "Contacting NASA". On the 6th, I was actually able see some text.

Over the next few days, the page hit count at NASA/JPL had exceeded 120 million per day, second only to the Microsoft Windows 95 Support Page and narrowly edging out the Playboy site. At peak times, they were actually taking hits faster than Bill Gates was making money.

My favorite of all of the space images sites would have to be the VRML page at Silicon Graphics. If you have the bandwidth, visit http://mars.sgi.com/vrml/mpf1/mpf1.wrl, where you can see from the point of view of the Rover, and turn the camera using your keyboard, adjusting zoom and peering around in 360 degrees, just like a Japanese tourist. If you don't have the time, patience or bandwidth, you could recreate the experience by standing anywhere in the desert around Needles, California with rose-colored sunglasses on.

I'm sure that the Mars effort instilled in you the same feelings of awe and wonder as it did me. In a remarkable Engineering and Public Relations feat, the crack engineers and marketeers at NASA actually managed to land the 22-pound Sojourner on the surface of Mars on the Fourth of July, an important date in American history, marking the anniversary of when China purchased San Francisco from the Democratic National Committee. What was originally thought to be the cover of darkness was later discovered that they had landed the Sojourner in a dumpster behind a 7-11, where, by the time they discovered the booboo, it had already been stripped of its tires, batteries and radio. Fortunately, a Continental Airlines jet had also recently landed nearby, and an innovative Flight Engineer re-equipped the Sojourner with wheels that look suspiciously like those from a Beverage Service cart.

But the point is, that I was "there" through my browser and modem. Okay, so were CNN, the other networks, and nearly every channel, including "Nick at Night". It is not without irony that we invaded Mars one year to the day after they invaded us in the movie, "Independence Day". Here in the good old US of A, netizens can participate in current events. By contrast, those citizens of China lucky enough to be able to afford a PC, modem and phone line, couldn't have gotten there at all.

In an equally important space-related event much closer to home, the Communications Decency Act (CDA), proposed by a Congressman thought to have mysteriously arrived in Roswell, New Mexico (Motto: "Honk If You Love Aliens"), in 1947, was struck down by the Supreme Court (http://www.suprememecourtandgrill.com). This sweeping decision allows the approximately 99.8% of Web sites and surfers to continue providing and/or downloading the binary erotica they had stolen from each other. I'm convinced that "adult-oriented" pictures constitute roughly 99.8% of 'net traffic on a daily basis. I maintain that if all picture transmissions were taken out of the equation, 'net traffic would look like the Los Angeles Freeway System during the 1984 Summer Olympics. In case you missed it, their Marketing Geniusi warned the world of the first possible total freeway gridlock during the Olympics. Their warning worked like a charm: nobody, not even locals, came. By a strange coincidence, I had to teach a class in downtown LA during that time, and the freeways were emptier than the CEO's office at Apple Computers.

While our own Supreme Court Justices were dancing around in their Judicial Robes with nothing on underneath, the Government of Germany (Motto: "Dumkovs Uber AOLes" ("Ve Vill Control Ze Veb")) was simultaneously enacting legislation to "Boobsenbuttzen Verboten" (ban pornographic content) on German ISPs.

Speaking of space, the Pathfinder mission is truly a tribute to technology, with the possible exception of continuing to have MODEM problems, preventing it from being able to send messages home. My guess is that it's too busy downloading pictures of the Space Girls. That should teach NASA a lesson about getting their 'net access through AOL.

In another space-related news item, it was determined that the recent collision at the Russian MIR space station was in fact human error. Apparently, the person at the controls attempting to dock the supply ship didn't notice the bumper sticker on the space station which stated quite clearly, but in Russian, "Objects in MIR are closer than they appear".

See you next issue.

Jon Sisk
www.jes.com

Original article for Computing News & Review, July, 1997

Copyright © 1997 Jonathan E. Sisk.