KEEP FINGERS CROSSED – AT 11:05 A.M. ET:  Today, we hope, will be a great one in the history of America's space program.  From Fox: 

NASA’s InSight Lander is close to making its historic touchdown on Mars after an epic journey of just over 300 million miles.

The Lander is expected to reach the Martian surface around 3 p.m. ET Monday.

When it reaches the Red Planet, the probe will have traveled 301,223,981 miles at a top speed of 6,200 mph, according to NASA. The final stage of its descent, however, is fraught with difficulty — NASA engineers characterize landing on Mars as “seven minutes of terror.”

"We can't joystick the landing, so we have to rely on the commands we pre-program into the spacecraft. We've spent years testing our plans, learning from other Mars landings and studying all the conditions Mars can throw at us,” said Rob Grover, InSight's entry, descent and landing (EDL) lead, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, in a recent statement. And we're going to stay vigilant till InSight settles into its home in the Elysium Planitia region."

On Sunday NASA engineers successfully tweaked the probe’s trajectory, steering the spacecraft within a few miles of its targeted entry point over the Red Planet.

"While most of the country was enjoying Thanksgiving with their family and friends, the InSight team was busy making the final preparations for Monday's landing," said Tom Hoffman of JPL, InSight's project manager, in a statement released Sunday. "Landing on Mars is difficult and takes a lot of personal sacrifices, such as missing the traditional Thanksgiving, but making InSight successful is well worth the extraordinary effort."

COMMENT:  We will be watching.  Remember when President Obama said that the mission of NASA was "Muslim outreach"?  Americans gasped.  Gasp no more.  We're back.

November 26,  2018