It’s fairly quiet here in Tucson. There are several reasons for this. First, the University of Arizona held its graduation last week, so most of the co-eds have jetted off, leaving this sleepy college town sleepier. Second, deputy project scientist Deborah Bass is insisting that the mission scientists, who have arrived in Tucson this week to stay for the summer, take it easy today. They are sleeping late, trying to get their bodies adjusted to Mars time. Some took off for hikes amid the saguaro cacti in nearby parks.
But the last reason why it is so quiet here is that the landing sequence is being operated from Jet Propulsion Lab out in California. Most of the media are out in Pasadena, at least for the first day or two. Here are a few sites that will be doing live blogging:
On Tuesday Monday, mission PI Peter Smith will return to Tucson for the daily science operations. And the media scrum will follow him, I suspect. But until then, it seems that I’ll have this town mostly to myself. Though I bet that will start to change this afternoon, after the last pre-landing press conference.