Footage of the Apollo 11 launch with comments from Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins, and other Apollo astronauts.  From the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon.

Another argument put in the interview was in relation to accountability.

But here’s what the independent Scottish EPA has to say about that.

The agency board is responsible to Scottish Ministers, with SEPA officers reporting to a specific minister and department at the Scottish Executive. Our corporate management team is responsible to the agency board, and there is a formal scheme of delegated authority to board sub-committees and SEPA officers.

The agency board members are appointed by the First Minister and they set SEPA’s direction. The three regional boards act as the ‘eyes and ears’ of SEPA, with members appointed from a range of backgrounds and locations.

Around half of our funding comes from the Scottish Executive, with the other half charged to operators that we regulate, under the polluter-pays principle. Accordingly, we are accountable through Ministers and officials at the Scottish Executive for what we do and how we spend our money.

The event was a play ‘The Four Rivers’, written and choreographed by two teachers from Castlenock Education Together school, and performed by children from Monaghan Model National School (Church of Ireland) and St Patrick’s National School in Clara (Catholic), two of the participating IERS schools. It was a moving occasion, funny and instructive, with wonderful samba drumming and an inspirational story about river people who traditionally never talked to each other coming together to defeat a marauding dragon. Some parents and teachers were in tears at the end of it. The children had a ball.

This has been an exemplary project. It has brought teachers and children from the unionist heartlands of Ballymena, Antrim, Cullybackey and Coleraine together with their neighbouring Catholic schools and with Protestant and Catholic counterpart schools in Dundalk and Monaghan for two years of fun – they had overnight residentials in the spectacular surroundings of the Donegal Mountains and the Fermanagh lakes – and (for the teachers) difficult, sensitive work in learning, with skilled facilitators, how to face up to the twin afflictions of racism and sectarianism in their own attitudes.

The project coordinator, Marie Hoeritzauer, says that for her the most impressive outcome was the personal development the participating teachers experienced by making themselves deal with these controversial issues, and learning how to tackle them with the children in the classroom. She produced two superb booklets of guidance materials – People are People All Over the World – which at least one education and library board in Northern Ireland is now planning to distribute to all its primary schools.

The pupils made friends not only with African and Indian and Eastern European children from other schools, but with Protestant and Catholic children from schools in the other Irish jurisdiction as well. One often forgets two things in these North-South educational exchanges. The first is that it is the small things which make a difference: one principal of a Southern border region Church of Ireland school recounted how she had learned to play the tin whistle in Armagh during a predecessor to the IERS project and as a result the tin whistle – until then seen by her co-religionists as a “Catholic and Gaelic” instrument – was now played regularly in local Church of Ireland church services, particularly on Children’s Sunday.

The second thing is the sheer pleasure the children experience through these cross-border, cross-community exchanges. To watch them samba-drumming in Dundalk or doing Indian dances in Ballycastle or ‘banana boating’ on Upper Lough Erne is to see the shyness disappearing, the confidence growing and the understanding and respect for cultural difference starting to dawn in quite young children. To see such happiness in the eyes of children makes the work of those of us who try in a small way to cross the barriers of religion and nationality that have cursed this island for so long seem all seem worthwhile.

The IERS project also made a big difference to the ‘newcomer’ children taking part. A Polish interpreter who accompanied some Polish pupils to one of the residentials wrote afterwards:  “For the Polish girls it was a very special time.  They had an opportunity to meet new friends and feel just like at home. Because they are children of migrant workers, they need to feel they are not isolated from Irish society and an outing like this should improve their ability to settle in their adopted country. For the Irish children it was a great opportunity to share activities and to learn to cooperate with another country.”

So I just want to say a huge ‘thank you’ to Marie Hoeritzauer (who inevitably, because the EU money runs out next month, is starting a new job in July) for all her extraordinarily hard work on this project; and to the 12 schools, their principals, teachers, pupils and parents, for contributing so much to the project’s success. The other participating schools were Cullybackey High School, St Louis Grammar School in Ballymena, Antrim Primary School, St Mary’s Primary School in Cargan and St John’s Primary School in Carnlough, all in County Antrim; Ballysally Primary School in Coleraine, County Londonderry; and Dundalk Grammar School, St Mary’s College in Dundalk, Louth National School and St Nicholas National School in Dundalk, all in County Louth.

Andy Pollak

Ed Gowdy, 40, said he “can’t remember 90%” of what happened that evening. However he told the court that following the killing, IRA members called to his house on several occasions. He said: “as soon as I got clearance from the IRA, I made a statement to police.”

During cross examination, Mr Gowdy had already admitted lying to police because of perceived paramilitary involvement in the murder. He said that because of where he lived, he “didn’t know the situation at the time, what I could say or what I couldn’t say”.

A vast amount has been written about why Paisley went into the agreement.  Some who support the agreement have seen him as wishing to have a “positive” legacy, it has even been suggested that he now feeling that he will soon meet his Maker wants to “redeem” himself. I would suggest that the first might be true but more likely betrays a failure to understand the world view of people like Paisley and latter shows a complete misunderstanding of fundamentalist Protestant theology.

More cynical voices have suggested that Paisley was interested in power for himself alone and as such opposed every agreement until there was one which would leave him as First Minister. One might even see the change in the voting arrangements for the First Minister’s post as an attempt to ensure that unionists would have to make the DUP the largest party within unionism and hence give Paisley the first minister-ship lest it fall to Sinn Fein.

Dr. Paisley himself seems at times to have veered between two alternative though not necessarily mutually exclusive reasons for going into power sharing with Sinn Fein. At times he has said that this was a great deal for unionism and that his pledge to “Smash Sinn Fein” has been effectively achieved with IRA decommissioning and SF now supporting the police. At other times the explanation has been somewhat less triumphant and he has raised the spectre of Plan B which, we were told, would result in defacto joint sovereignty.

Unionist opponents of the current agreement have tended to be most suspicious of these Paisley explanations; most anti agreement unionists would probably accept that St. Andrews is an advance over the Belfast Agreement. However, this advance is seen as a small incremental advance and nowhere near the renegotiation which the DUP appeared to be seeking when they became the majority party within unionism and effectively took over negotiations on behalf of the unionist community.

Equally anti agreement unionists have been most sceptical of Paisley’s explanation of the dreaded Plan B. Jim Allister has pointed out that Paisley never told him anything of the substance of this Plan B when he (Allister) was arguing against the agreement from within the DUP. Others have pointed out that Paisley has never been one to waver before threats and blackmail from anywhere, including from the British Government. As such anti agreement unionists (often once amongst Dr. Paisley’s most ardent supporters) tend to feel that he was bewitched by the lust of power and was happy with an agreement which would make him leader.

There might be one other partial explanation as well, however. Paisley denounced the previous compromises suggested by O’Neill, Faulkner after Sunningdale or Trimble after the Belfast Agreement. He even denounced Jim Molyneaux as “Judas.” On each of these occasions, however, Dr. Paisley was on the outside. On each occasion the leader or leaders of unionism (but not Paisley) had felt the full weight of the persuasion of the British government, often backed up by the weight of Irish, and United States governments’ opinion along with the international pressure for a “solution”. On each of those occasions according to hard line unionists the leader of unionism had buckled and given ground, ground which should not have been given. On each occasion amongst the first to cry “Lundy” was Paisley himself. Each time when a unionist leader seemed like the defeated Shylock to say “Send the deed after me, And I will sign it” (Merchant of Venice IV, i) there was Paisley; seen by many as a rock, indeed a place of refuge. As once of my more lyrical friends once (almost blasphemously) put it “We are safe beneath Paisley’s wings.”

This time, however, it was different. It was Paisley who felt the weight of all the flattery combined with threats of Plan B. Jonathan Powell and others have recounted how Paisley was flattered by Blair, how Paisley gave Blair bible tracts for Euan Blair, how pleased Paisley was when the likes of George Bush telephoned him at the British government’s behest. It is also recounted that Paisley had numerous meetings with Blair without other DUP leaders. This was the very error I can remember Trimble saying that Jim Molyneaux committed with John Major and at least at the start of Trimble’s negotiations he always took the likes of John Taylor with him. It seems maybe that under this combination of flattery, charm and threats the old man buckled and bowed the knee to the agreement.

Certainly many previous unionist leaders have done much the same but it is hard to imagine Dr. Paisley in what rejectionist unionists would regard as his pomp being as receptive to that combination of flattery, bribery and bullying. Maybe age has wearied him and the years condemned: either that or he just wanted a place in history or the power or some combination of all these. I suspect no one other than Paisley (if even he) knows why he did his political somersault.

I will leave you with Prospero’s final words “As you from crimes would pardoned be, Let your indulgence set me free.” At the end of the play Prospero waits for the audience’s applause. Dr. Paisley has had much applause during his prolonged departure and I have no doubt he will get even more applause in the days to come but not always from the people who helped him in times past and not all of those who stood there when he boomed “Never, Never, Never, never.”

And from the Consultative Group’s press release

Denis Bradley said, “Many people have put their faith in the Criminal Justice system delivering for them. Even while knowing people would only serve a maximum of two years under the early release scheme, it was important for them that justice was seen to be done. We sympathize with this desire for justice.

“However it is difficult for us not to listen to those experts who are telling us that the reality is that as each day passes securing justice becomes less and less likely. In many historic cases witnesses have died, exhibits are no longer credible or have disintegrated over time. This is the reality of the situation.”

And also

In his closing remarks Denis Bradley said, “As a group we are committed to addressing the legacy of the past in a way that will promote a greater goal of reconciliation within and between our people. We recognise that reconciliation remains an elusive and contested concept.

“For some of us this will mean being reconciled to the fact that our future is together, that we do share the land and its resources and a common sense of belonging to this place.

“For all of us it will mean bringing a new measure of common purpose reflected in greater cohesion, sharing and integration in our communities. We have no choice. There is no better future without a shared future; there is no shared future without reconciliation.”

Time then to undermine those old certainties..

Adds  The full text of the speech addresses a wide range of groups and organisations but this, in particular, stood out.

In all our consultations it is unclear if Republicans truly appreciate the depth of hurt that exists in the Unionist community.

Republicans claimed they were targeting State forces in the guise of RUC/UDR members. Unionist communities, particularly in rural border areas, saw such tactics as deliberately killing fathers and eldest, or only, sons to drive Protestants from their homes and land. We have heard many stories from these communities who describe their experiences in this way - as at best raw sectarianism and at worst ethnic cleansing.

They believe Republicans have not come to fully understand the hurt that still exists and they need to acknowledge and appreciate the damage they did to the prospect of reconciliation between our two communities.

Indeed if the aim of the Republican struggle was to unite Catholic, Protestant and Dissenter, the brutal logic of their violence undermined this aim. The reality of the depth of division that has been caused between neighbours - who now need to share the future, needs to be acknowledged. Regardless of the uniform, the cause, countrymen killed fellow countrymen. While we realize Republicans have embarked on a process to address some of these issues we believe more needs to be done - apologizing to non-combatants just isn’t good enough.

It is inconceivable that a newspaper would get away with not naming the BBC or a rival newspaper when quoting exclusive material. Yet, with blogs it happens absolutely routinely. Jazz Biscuit complains about not one, but two newspapers who seem to have lost his ‘exclusive’ on the Dustin poster photo somewhere along the line.

Interestingly too he notes:

The blog was originally a way of getting the column online and letting people comment, but it turned out to be the least commented-upon part of the blog. It must have had a lot to do with the fact that people don’t really want to read 800 words in a blog format. That’s best kept for print.

Shane will be much missed by his readers, but it is to be hoped that his paper will take proper note of his experience and use some of his blogging insights to beef up ireland.com. The Independent group have been slow to embrace the web’s capacity for building community and context. But even there, there are signs of some movement, particularly in their use of tagged back links. They also have the advantage of learning in-house lessons from the experimentation that’s going on at the English Independent.

I would also say (without indulging in what Shane refers to as “a bit too much back-slapping”), that the 72 comments (thus far) from people across the blogosphere indicates that Shane has built a bridge with an notoriously snappy and sometimes petulant group of individuals, at a time when the paper has resolutely kept most of its print content under lock and ‘subscription only’ key.

For now all I can say is: ‘Fill go luath’! Or, for the Ulster Scots among us: Haste ye back!

Mr Burke also recalled that both the DUP and Sinn Fein had not taken up opportunities to make submissions to the review panel. “The first time I met someone from the DUP was when we went to brief the Minister on our findings,” he said.

Yet the deputy chair of the Environment committee Cathal Boylan yesterday was “disappointed because she [the Minister] has missed a good opportunity to introduce an independent environmental protection agency (EPA). The Minister mentioned some positive aspects about EHS; however, it has a bad record when it comes to planning and illegal dumping, particularly in border areas.” He makes an important point: internal deals between Ministers have a nasty way of being compromised by events. But why then were there no recommendations to Tom Burke’s panel from his own party, Sinn Fein?

There is some sympathy due to the Minister’s view that “the setting up of yet another quango in which unelected people will take decisions on behalf of the people of Northern Ireland. I am Minister of the Environment, and it is I, along with my Executive colleagues, who will take the decisions that will be scrutinised by the House and by the Committee for the Environment.” That, after all, is why we elect them.

Devolution has brought long wished for decision-making powers back to the locality. No minister wants to give that away lightly. Yet, the truth is that this kind of environmental protection agency may eventually have to be brought in because of the pressure on government to steer a consistent course along lines set by EU Directives.

The minister also alludes to set up costs of £2.5 million and running costs per annum of £600,000. It’s not clear where these additional costs would come from since (unlike the welter of Commissions many of which have little power other than to act as a clearing house for lobbyists) the primary functions already exist within the EHS.

It should be said that f Northern Ireland is blessed with the kind of economic growth the Republic has seen in the last ten to fifteen years, robust regulation needs to be embedded sooner rather than latter. It’s not simply a case of bungalow blight, the locals complain of, but insufficient services for expanded local communities and poor planning decisions made that have lasting (almost indelible) effects on transport and other wider forms of infrastructure. 

The impression given here is that since, as one nationalist politician was heard to say a few years back, ‘there are no votes in the Environment’, another tough decision has been put on the long finger.

It would useful though to hear how the minister intends to keep clear blue water between the new EHS and the policy making function of her department. The board arrangement she mentioned yesterday sounds something like the way the Water Council has operated. And yet they have had enormous difficulty in the past, for instance, in getting access to legal advice given to direct rule minister viz a viz the Urban Waste Water Directive. Burke’s report notes three problems facing any body internal to central government have emerged from experience in Britain and elsewhere.

First, the necessary confidentiality of departmental policy making processes and inter-departmental debate creates a serious lack of transparency around the making of regulatory decisions. Without transparency regulatory decisions command neither the confi dence of the public nor that of the regulated.

Second, the officials administering the regulations are exposed to both a real and perceived risk of conflict of interest. This places the officials themselves in an unfair position in relation to the discharge of their statutory duties and further undermines the confidence of the public and that of the regulated in regulatory decisions. As departmental civil servants, the officials in charge of regulation are accountable, through the Department’s Permanent Secretary, to Ministers. Their first priority is to serve the Minister. Regulatory decisions are predominantly matters of judgement and can frequently result in decisions that are unpopular in some, and occasionally many, quarters. Inevitably, there is suspicion, indeed some risk, that judgements might be tailored to suit immediate
political circumstances.

Third, the effectiveness of the proposed agency as a promoter of fair and effective regulation and as an advocate for high environmental standards is inhibited. Modern environmental governance requires a strong and focused regulator able to adopt modern risk-based regulatory practices without a loss of public confidence. The proposed Agency therefore needs to be able to position itself in the public mind as a forceful advocate for the environment. To do so it needs to be able to carry out successful outreach activities whilst avoiding the risk of being seen to be at odds with the Government.

So openness is not necessarily, as the Minister appears to suggest, the most critical question here. Rather it is the lack of what John Kay calls ‘disciplined pluralism’. That ultimately should be about bring greater discipline to the business of government, and making sure that there is little scope for the convenient shifting of goalposts.

PS, It’s interesting to note that one of the expert witnesses at the time of the trial in Bogota argued that since the FARC are well in advance technically of the IRA; there would be no point in the IRA trying to train the FARC. Something or someone is wrong somewhere along the line…

And while I wouldn’t use a few of the terms Mark uses it is a very interesting piece.

So at last, now the men of violence had agreed to give up their weapons, the area could attract a peaceful company with a turnover of seventeen billion dollars from making weapons. Clearly, all the while the IRA were decommissioning their arms, most of us misunderstood this process. Because the government reports must have gone “They possess 100 rifles, 10 RPG 7 rockets and a shed full of semtex. If they want to be taken seriously this isn’t NEARLY enough; they need Tornado bombers and a car park full of tanks - we can’t deal with these amateurs.”

For example, when Raytheon won a contract to develop a new missile system for the Israelis in 2006, a spokesman boasted they would “Provide all-weather hit-to-kill performance at a tactical missile price.” Next they might have adverts, that go “Hurry hurry hurry to the Raytheon springtime sale for lasers, tasers and civilian-erasers that will make flesh sizzle through snow, sleet or drizzle WITHOUT making a casualty of your wallet.”

Despite this, the government in Northern Ireland welcomed the new plant, claiming they’d been assured it wouldn’t be making weapons. To which a reasonable response would be ‘Right - they’re a weapons manufacturer - they supplied weapons to, amongst others, the Indonesian military junta - this might, if you were cynical, suggest they make weapons. Or what do you THINK they’re going to be making - FAIRTRADE FUCKING CUSTARD!’

Eventually it was admitted they were making guidance systems for missiles, and so for a while there was a pretence these were being employed for peaceful reasons. Perhaps the systems were being attached to wasps so that a central controlling network could guide them away from picnics.

But then it became clear they were being used by the Israelis in Lebanon, and there was outrage in Derry when in 2006 one such system guided a missile into a block of flats in Qana, killing 28 people, mostly children. A few days later the local anti-war group, including the journalist and civil rights activist Eamonn McCann, decided to occupy the Raytheon building as a protest. A group of nine got into the plant, and as a gesture they threw a computer or two out of the window. Eventually around 40 police arrived and, as Eamonn describes “They smashed through the doors wearing riot gear, many holding perspex shields, some pointing plastic-bullet guns. They inched forward while the officer in command shouted ‘surrender’. We continued playing cards.”

And as I know Eamonn I can imagine him later that night in the police cell muttering “Tonight did not go as planned at all - I was SURE no one would beat my pair of queens.”

Then came the official outrage - they’d wilfully broken the law, destroyed property etc. etc. So maybe whether an act of destruction is considered illegal or not comes down to the value of the objects destroyed. And computers are worth a fair packet, whereas a house in Qana can probably be picked up for next to nothing, especially with the current housing slump!

Perhaps the activists went about their protest in the wrong way. The more official approach might have been to leave Raytheon alone, but announce the local Co-op was making weapons. Then they could have produced a dossier to prove it, containing snippets from the internet about how the manager had been buying uranium from North Korea and smuggling it into the fridges in packets of fish fingers. Then they could have flattened the place, and when it turned out there never were any weapons they could have said it doesn’t really make any difference.

Last year the group travelled to Qana to meet the families of the victims of that missile, and they described the trip, not surprisingly, as the most moving experience of their lives. But while it’s all very well feeling compassion for dead civilians, someone has to consider the feelings of that poor computer, so this week their trial began. Because opposing the bombing of civilians with missiles made as a result of a peace process can land you in jail, whereas organising international support for bombing those civilians gets you a job as peace envoy to the place that was bombed. It’s obvious when you think about it.

I only hope that as the computer hit the ground, in its last moment it flickered ‘You have performed an illegal operation’.

The StormontLive coverage started with the Environment Minister, the DUP’s Arlene Foster, announcing her proposals to the Assembly followed by a studio discussion involving the Minister, the Chairman of the Assembly’s Environment Committee, the SDLP’s Patsy McGlone.  The Minister’s reference to her “Scottish counterpart” comes around 5min 40sec in.

Then the Green Party’s Brian Wilson and the UUP’s Roy Beggs.

The last political representatives in discussion were Alliance Party leader David Ford and Sinn Féin’s Daithí McKay.

Finally, BBC NI’s political editor Mark Devenport makes a couple of important points, on the reluctance to devolve power beyond the Executive, and, in light of the Scottish examples noted above, the difference between an Independent EPA and the in-house version the Minster proposes.

“The car park was pretty full of cars and the elders had asked the police to wait outside the grounds of the church while the rest of the congregation came out.”
“The police didn’t wait — perhaps they couldn’t wait.”

Whilst the Rev Geoffrey Abraham said:

“There was only one gate open that night so the motorist would have had to go back out the same way.
The men just asked the police to remain at the gate and apprehend the driver on the way out but they said they wanted to come in.
They said they had the number of the car. They then went back up the road. They did not give the number to the men. I can’t understand why they have not apprehended the driver if they had the number.”

The Newsletter reports a police spokesperson:

“We can confirm that a motorist who was detected driving in excess of the speed limit in Aughnacloy failed to stop for police at around 10pm on Sunday, May 11 and parked in a busy car park of a church at the Caledon Road.

“Attempts to identify the driver and vehicle so far have been unsuccessful. Inquiries are still continuing and witnesses are asked to contact police in Dungannon.”

Tom Elliott the UUP MLA has joined in the fun:

“There is bound to be a query over whether the police have the power to enter the car park and if they did, why did they not do it?
“I think there are a lot of unanswered questions here. I am also wondering if the police took the names of the members of the congregation who asked them not to come in.”
“There must have been a reason why they asked them not to come in. I would certainly like to know the answer.
“It is quite an unusual set of circumstances and poses an awful lot of unanswered questions”

UUP councilor Jim Hamilton who is chairman of Dungannon and South Tyrone DPP intends to raise the incident at the next meeting.

The purpose of the proposed ‘Independent’ Environmental Protection Agency is to remove important environmental protection decisions from the day-to-day pressures on elected representatives. Instead, Mrs Foster’s bid to take a seat in the next Westminister election has taken priority over the advice of the experts who delivered their report on the Review of Environmental Governance (NI) last year. A core recommendation, based on the deplorable record of the Environment and Heritage Service, was the creation of an ‘Independent’ Environmental Protection Agency. Foster has opted to rebadge and relaunch the Environment and Heritage Service as an ‘Environment Agency’.

The Environment Minister’s performance in the Assembly chamber was abysmal. She flatly contradicted herself when responding to one MLA’s question regarding the need for cross-party support on the Executive. She made the absurd claim that environmental governance is not a cross-cutting issue, having stated earlier in her statement, that she had consulted a number of other Departments (DRD, DARD) regarding proposals to amalgamate their environmental responsibilities.

It is clear that other parties on the Executive, including Sinn Fein, the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists, have decided to hide behind the DUP’s agenda and play it both ways. Both Mark Durkan and Gerry Adams recently signed a public declaration in favour of an independent EPA.  Foster put her finger on the weakness of other parties when it comes to their publicly stated support for an EPA, when she reminded the Chair of the Assembly Environment Committee, Patsy McGlone (SDLP) that his own “joined up thinking” left a lot to be desired. She reminded him that he combines his publicly stated support for an independent EPA with popular enthusiasm across the parties for unrestricted building in the countryside.

Further political cover for the Executive parties will be provided in the years up to the next Assembly Election by the launch of the Department of the Environment’s White Paper. Providing cover for non-decision making has become a running theme on the Executive. Foster has obliged and turned herself into an alternative EPA: an ‘Executive Protection Agent!’

Adds

The Review of Environmental Governance recommended an Independent Environmental Protection Agency in this form

The new Agency should have the following structure:

• a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department of the Environment,

• the duties and functions of the Agency should be embodied in statute,

• governed by a Board of no more than 12 members,

• the Board should comprise the Chair, the Chief Executive and members providing specific expertise in relevant areas,

• members of the Board should be appointed by the Minister of the Environment in accordance with the principles and procedures of the published guidance from the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments for NI,

• a Chief Executive should be appointed and should be responsible to the Board for the day-to-day running of the proposed Agency,

• the staff of the proposed Agency should be employees of the Agency and not the Northern Ireland Civil Service,

• the proposed Agency should issue an annual report on the conduct of its statutory duties, and

• the proposed Agency should be located in an iconic historical building or a state-of-the-art new building reflecting best practices in sustainable building.

The Environment Minister instead proposes

The Minister also said there would be restructuring and a change of culture within DOE. EHS will be retained and reorganised as an Agency of DOE, two independent Board members will be appointed and open Board meetings will be held.

The Minister said: “In EHS we have an impressive pool of intellectual capacity, practical ability and determination to get things done. This is a valuable and irreplaceable resource of which we can all be proud. I will retain it as a DOE Executive Agency and will launch it as the Northern Ireland Environment Agency.”

How to take a picture of a spacecraft landing.  Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona.

The vast plains of the northern polar region of Mars, as seen by NASA’s Phoenix Mars Lander shortly after touching down on the Red Planet.  Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/Texas A&M.

Wondrous.

And an interesting point from an earlier RTÉ report

Unlike the rovers, Phoenix did not bounce to the planet’s surface in airbags, which are not suitable for larger spacecraft.

Instead, like the 1970s-era Viking probes and the failed Polar Lander mission, it used a jet pack to lower itself to the ground and fold-out legs to land on.

‘We haven’t landed successfully on legs and propulsive rockets in 32 years,’ [NASA’s space sciences chief] Mr Weiler said.

‘When we send humans there, women and men, they’re going to be landing on rockets and legs, so it’s important to show that we still know how to do this.’

Indeed.