"Mission Update"

This week one of the narratives we read in class was title "Mission Update." The author was Steve Squyres. He was writing about the landing of the spacecraft Opportunity on Mars in 2006. Squyres's purpose for writing this blog was to inform and interest his audience, which in this case is the entire world. He writes about how Opportunity lands on the Victoria Crater, and is going to take pictures of the land on Mars. He and his fellow astronauts want to move to a different part of Mars before communication is lost between NASA and their shuttle.

The tone of this narrative was completely different from the tone of some of the other narratives we have been reading lately. Steve Squyres wrote in a detailed and descriptive tone, but it was also more exited and enthusiastic. He was enjoying every second of being in space, and witnessing what Mars actually looks like. What made the experience even more amazing was that he could actually blog while all of this was happening. We live in a time now where an astronaut can actually blog from space, where only some time ago people believed that even going up to space would be almost impossible.