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NASA sends good wishes to ISRO with 'peanuts'

Tradition of the peanuts for Mars missions in NASA goes back to 1960s

T E Narasimhan Chennai
America's space research organisation NASA has sent ‘lucky peanuts’ to ISRO for the November 5, Mars Mission launch.
 
The good wishes came via ISRO’s eight-day-old Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) Facebook page, which already got 11,536 likes till Friday afternoon and more than 10,000 people talking about it.
 
“As you prepare for your launch to Mars, do not forget one of the few, but important actions: pass around the peanuts!,” NASA said.
 
The US space agency noted, the tradition of the peanuts for Mars missions at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) goes way back to the 1960s with the very first missions NASA sent to the moon.
 
 
"We had seven mission attempts to go to the moon before we succeeded, at on that seventh one, they had passed out peanuts in the control room" said in the Wish.
 
Ranger 7, whcih is July 1964 became the first US space probe to successfully transmit close images of the moon's surface back to the Earth, made the peanuts into a tradition at JPL.
 
"So ever since then, it has been a long standing tradition to hand out peanuts whenever we launch and whenever we do anything important like land on Mars. We use all the luck we can get!," said NASA.
 
NASA said for MSL, it has put a label on the jar that says "dare might things". That phrase was taken from Theodore Roosevelt's quote, "far better it is t dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those timid spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the grey twilight that knows neighter victor nor defeat."
 
NASA concluded saying Go MOM! Good Luck MOM! Launch November 5, 2013.

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First Published: Nov 01 2013 | 2:00 PM IST

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