You better not be pointin' at me

Special K: "San Jose couple, married 67 years, getting vaccinations together on Valentine's Day"

b1-66er: SWEET!

(👈 I'm with Vaxxy)

McCoo U.

b1-66er: "Scientists Are Pretty Sure They Found a Portal to the Fifth Dimension"

Special K: Let the sunshine in. 

In the words of our four fathers...

b1-66er: "My name is Leo and I am 8 years old. I listen to All Things Considered in the car with mom. I listen a lot.

I never hear much about nature or dinosaurs or things like that. Maybe you should call your show Newsy things Considered, since I don't get to hear about all the things. Or please talk more about dinosaurs and cool things.

Sincerely,

Leo"

Dad 1: Ha ha. Awesome

Kids got a point

Dad 2: Kid has a point!

Dad 3: That's awesome! 

Old dad 4: Everybody's a critic. 

Now ... bite my dynamite

b1-66er: "If I Have Sex the Way I Really Like, I'm Afraid My Neighbors Will Call the Cops"

Special K: Try to cut down on the explosives, sir.

Cockamamie fight!

b1-66er: "Three countries are due to reach Mars in the next two weeks"

Special K: Good deal.

b1-67er: So there are four possible wins:us lander, china orbiter, china lander, UAE orbiter.  How many wins do you think there will be?

66: That's a good question.

And part of it will depend on the definition of a "win"...

...e.g. Mr. Musk thinks blowing his rockets to smithereens on landing is a "success"...

... There's an added complication in that both espionage and falsified data are possible here...

But I'll go with 2...

... The US and 1 of the Chinese.

Which, I guess, means you can color the UAE entry as "doomed" in my eyes.

67: Win is orbiter operating for thirty days.  Rover has to land (not space x style) and drive for one day.

D4rw1n: I say any confirmed landing is a win because it means the lander was not destroyed on impact. I've got a rooting interest in the US lander, because i'm always rooting for USA. And my client made a lot of the components. But I'm guessing one in four wins.

67: US has pretty good ability to do imagery of Mars surface.  Fraud here would be detected I think.

66: Land not SpaceX style, is a laugh out loud funny expression.

D4:  I wonder if the Chinese could ever get away with falsifying data. You'd think they'd be motivated to, but I'm not aware of any evidence they've done it before with regard to space exploration

67: I was going to go with 3.  Most likely fail is UAE orbiter with Chinese rover not far behind.

D4: I laughed at "space X style" too

This is great. We have votes for one, two, and three. But we have different definitions of a win

Oddly my definition is easiest, but my prediction is lowest

67: US lander has good chances although I think the lowering on cables concept is cockamamie.

D4: Although I guess my definition doesn't work, because the  UAE orbiter never has to land 

That cable thing looks really awkward

But, to be fair, no more awkward than the bouncing balloon ball we had a few years ago

67: Oh no way.  The bouncing ball is a great design.  Pretty failsafe. 

66: My favorite of all these kinds of extraterrestrial motions was the jumping Japanese shoebox. 

(On an asteroid!)

67: Also a great, great design.  I wouldn't have come up with it. Brutally simple. Not external moving parts.  Awesome.

Crap(s)

b1-66er: "Las Vegas company announces product to prevent COVID-19 and help in school shooting situations"

b1-67er: Bulletproof suit with breathing apparatus?

Special K: Loaded dice. 

Do you have any of those spiked toothpicks as well?

b1-66er: "Trader Joe's Kicks Off 2021 With Hell In a Jar"

Special K: I'll take 6.