One fact I learned recently is that it is really, really hard to get to Mars. I know that seems like the most obvious statement since, “”Space Camp” was the finest movie of 1986,” but I mean that it is really, really hard to get to Mars. Curiosity, the rover that lander on Mars late last year, cost $2.5 billion to make and involved the work of more than 7,000 people – and no one was positive it would even make it to the planet until it touched down.
The previous Mars exploration vehicles, a pair of rovers named Spirit and Opportunity launched nine years ago, cost $800m in total. And it looks like one of the machines decided to make use of all that funding and draw an enormous ejaculating penis onto the surface of Mars. The impressive phallus comes from NASA”s website along with an explanation that the rovers tend to move in tight circles while exploring new terrain, thus creating shapes that could very easily approximate testicles. The best thing about the incident is that no one knows which of the two rovers is responsible for the drawing, which means we get to imagine Spirit and Opportunity giggling uncontrollable whilst roaming about, concockting (sorry) more lewd symbols to etch onto the universe.
My two cents, though? One of the vehicles had better step forward before Banksy tries to take credit for the whole thing.