There's something magical about Mars. It has inspired countless science fiction stores, from The War of the Worlds to Total Recall, and draws the attention of geeks of all levels. Not too long ago, a functionally retarded Vice President, stated "Mars is essentially in the same orbit . . . Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe." He then suggested we offer a Potatoe to the Martians, and introduce them to trickle down economics when we finally land on their planet in the mysterious future.

As one of our closest planetary neighbors, and with significantly less poisonous gas in its atmosphere than Venus, it's also been a subject of scientific research for decades. When the Martians shot down[1] the Mars Climate Orbiter, Mars Polar Lander, and Deep Space 2, NASA and JPL continued to send probes to the red planet, including the hugely successful Mars Global Surveyor, and the Spirit and Opportunity rovers.

On Monday, the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which was launched just one year ago, completed its final breaking maneuvers, and entered orbit above the planet.

There are still plenty of opportunities for the spacecraft to fail, though, so don't go changing your holdings in the Spacecraft Dead Pool anytime soon.

According to NASA, the MRO will search for water, and provide the highest resolution photographs of the planet to date, and I can't wait to see what the face on Mars whackos have to say about that.

[1] No evidence actually exists that there are Martians, or that they have a death ray and are in cahoots with the Illuminati and the Free Masons.