This past week NASA announced that the Mars Rover Opportunity has stopped transmitting and its batteries have died. People all over social media were quite touched by Opportunity’s final words and there were heartfelt comments of sympathy for Opportunity.
I thought it was kind of sweet. Other people found a way to
be put off or even offended by this. There were false analogy arguments
comparing the feelings people had for the rover and what they feel for a
variety of other sympathetic causes like abused children, refugees, animals. It
was exhausting to read and misses the greater point; as most false analogies
do.
It’s not about parceling out compassion. There is room for feelings for everyone and everything. At the moment we are mourning the loss of a thing that was dear to many. That doesn’t have any relation to the compassion people do or do not have for abused animals, endangered species, or missing children. Those are separate issues.
It’s completely human to feel deeper feelings for people and things that are closer to you. It is understandable to cry over your dog’s death. Is it okay to ask someone, whose dog has just died, where are their tears for all the other dead dogs in the world? No, of course not. It would be heartless and unfair to minimize someone’s pain in that way.
Yes, Opportunity and the other rovers are machines. Human beings are social creatures and we bond not only with other humans but with animals and objects too. Think about your childhood teddy bear, your first car, an instrument you play, art you created. All of these things are things but you have affection for them. My husband’s first car was destroyed by a drunk driver while parked in front of his house. He speaks of that car like a long lost friend. The Mars Opportunity Rover was an extension of Us and as such has a special place in our hearts.
Opportunity was intended to last 90 days but instead lasted nearly 15 years. We have all seen the amazing images sent back to us from Mars and learned the data collected that has shed light on the origins of our planet and our solar system. Opportunity was our eyes and ears on a different planet and over the years he and the other rovers were personified in the way NASA spoke about them and the stories we read. Discovery Rover sang Happy Birthday to himself on the first anniversary of his landing on Mars. Curiosity, Spirit, and Opportunity, nicknamed Oppy, have their own Twitter profiles. They are technological marvels that humans created, paid for with our taxes, and launched into space.
We all know that Opportunity was a machine. We also know
that it had a life of some sort. Most of us can’t really explain how we mean
that. I think that understanding of Opportunity, as more than just a machine,
is a throwback to our animist roots as humans. It’s in our bones to sense the
life in the world around us. This is why we bond with our cars as well as we do
to our cats.
Opportunity’s final words were very human and poked us in
our existential dread but that doesn’t make the sadness we feel for him less
real or shallow. It instead reminded us of the affinity we have with all things
and that brought out our compassion. This week that compassion was focused on a
little robot who shut down on Mars.
I’m sorry to see him go.
