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Cake day: February 16th, 2025

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  • Yeah, the lunar lander was only just able to land on the Moon and then ascend back to the command module. To this day we still don’t have the technology to land something on Mars and then have that same thing ascend from Mars. We only recently mastered controlled descent after the ascent on Earth, now imagine trying to do it the other way around without refueling.

    Any current human Mars mission would require sending the ascent vehicle to Mars autonomously with some sort of autonomous construction capability, or something like Starship being capable of doing on Mars what it is supposed to be capable of doing on the Moon soon. Which isn’t very likely, considering Mars is quite literally 100% bigger than the Moon.

    When they sent the most recent Rover, they gave it the capability to collect and leave behind samples in sealed containers. The idea being that they would make a mission that would go get them later. It’s been over 10 years since the Mars 2020 mission was given the green light and the sample return mission has recently been all but canceled due to lack of feasibility and funding.







  • The last vestiges of the software company Microsoft died when they killed Windows Phone. What’s left is just Microsoft the IP holding company and hedge firm.

    The Xbox lost money for its entire life, but the point was to make enough of a splash to guarantee the next consoles were a success. When the red ring debacle happened Microsoft spent billions to make it right in order to save the brand and the company’s reputation. Now they are content to kill Xbox in favor of licensed branding and a subscription.

    Windows Phone represented an investment that went all the way back to Windows CE and Windows Mobile and devices like the Dreamcast and later the Zune with partnerships including Palm, Samsung, Motorola, Toshiba, and Sega as well as a merging of the Windows code base that allowed universal Windows/Xbox/Surface apps to be built. Then, literally weeks after HP announced a new Windows Phone device catalog with capabilities like docking stations and a desktop interface, they killed it off for that quarter’s profits.

    It was clear to me then that the last bits of the culture that saved the Xbox and cared about software and longevity was gone.