{"id":10172,"date":"2021-03-02T07:13:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-02T14:13:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/?p=10172"},"modified":"2021-03-01T14:14:41","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T21:14:41","slug":"perseverance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/perseverance\/","title":{"rendered":"Perseverance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

 By M.A. Dooley<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDad, why do people think the moon is made of cheese?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause of the holes, it looks like swiss cheese.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDad, what are the holes made of?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re craters made by asteroids crashing on the surface.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDad, can an asteroid crash here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible, but not probable.\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDad, is a shooting star a dying sun?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo, they are meteorites burning up in earth\u2019s atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut they\u2019re good luck, right dad?\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Mars landing reminded me of days of infinite possibilities. I was born to an aerospace engineer who flew to Cape Canaveral for satellite launches. The morning of the Apollo 12 lift-off, our family huddled around a black and white picture box. My little brother was just happy in mom\u2019s soft lap. I, the older one and already like my dad, asked innumerable questions before count down. Mom shushed me so dad could narrate the details of the rocket parts and stages. As soon as an opening allowed, I proceeded with my inquiry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDad, is there such thing as aliens?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible, but not probable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy not, dad?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBecause of all the ingredients required for life, especially water, which we can\u2019t find on other planets.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut dad, have we looked everywhere?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are trying.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDad, what about Mars?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNope, there\u2019s no life-sustaining elements there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut dad, is it possible that there once was?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s possible, but not probable.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut it is possible, right dad?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

M.A. Dooley<\/strong> is a fourth generation Californian who spent her childhood in the Santa Cruz Mountains. She is an architect in partnership with her husband. They have three sons. Among a multitude of athletic interests, she loves to ski and dance. Her work has been published in Sunset<\/em>, Trends<\/em>, San Francisco Magazine<\/em>, the San Francisco Chronicle<\/em>, The Press Democrat<\/em>,and in Poems of a Modern Day Architect<\/em> published by ARCHHIVE BOOKS, 2020. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 By M.A. Dooley \u201cDad, why do people think the moon is made of cheese?\u201d \u201cBecause of the holes, it looks like swiss cheese.\u201d \u201cDad, what are the holes made of?\u201d \u201cThey\u2019re craters made by asteroids crashing on the surface.\u201d \u201cDad, can an asteroid crash here?\u201d \u201cIt\u2019s possible, but not probable.\u201d   \u201cDad, is a shooting […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1474],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sparks"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43Dj8-2E4","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10172"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10173,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10172\/revisions\/10173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thewritespot.us\/marlenecullenblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}