the buzz log

It's hard enough getting up when the alarm blares every morning. Imagine if the dang-blasted thing set itself ahead 40 minutes every day. This sounds like a cruel hoax, but for a group of NASA scientists and engineers, it's the real deal.

The men and women working on the Phoenix Mars Lander mission have committed themselves to living on Mars time. And it ain't easy. Due to the Red Planet's orbit, its days never run parallel to Earth's. Instead, each dawn shifts forward 40 minutes. According to this popular article on Space.com, the project controllers are conforming to a schedule that's "like traveling two time zones every three days." Ouch.

Hopefully, the bleary-eyed space workers won't be too wiped out to celebrate a milestone birthday. Today marks NASA's 50th birthday. To mark the occasion, Popular Mechanics has a cool interactive graphic charting every space launch ever, from the earliest days of the U.S.-Soviet rivalry to the sleek design of Burt Rutan's suborbital plane.