Mars

There is liquid…

Weirdo

There is liquid water on Mars. The watery area in question is about 20 kilometers in diameter, and while depth can’t be determined, the deposit would likely have to be at least a meter thick to produce the reflection observed. So at a bare minimum we’re probably looking at a serious quantity of water, on the order of millions of liters.
“It’s not anything you’d want to swim in — negative 80 degrees Fahrenheit, or negative 60 Celsius, and probably more of a thick sludge subsiding here and there into “brine pools.” If I’m not mistaken you’d probably also be crushed like a bug if you weren’t inside some kind of pressure vessel. Still — it’s liquid water. On Mars. Today.”

The first Soviet probe sent…

Weirdo

The first Soviet probe sent to Mars’ moon Phobos failed due to user error. While the probe was still on its way to Mars, an impatient technician who didn’t want to wait for his code to be proofread unintentionally sent a command to the probe to shut down and there was no way to turn it back on.

After the incident, an investigation was immediately ordered to determine who was responsible for the failure. Nevertheless, disciplinary action was postponed until the completion of the Phobos 2 mission. This was to prevent the demoralization of the Phobos 2 team. Any penalization of the Phobos 1 team would create anxiety among the Phobos 2 team and reduce the chances of mission success.
This postponement of punitive measures was urged by IKI director Roald Sagdeev. He quoted the former secret service chief under Stalin, Lavrenti Beria, who said “Let’s make them work for now. We can shoot them all later.”