T-minus salinity

As I write this, there are 8.5 hours to the launch of one of the most innovative satellite remote sensing missions of all time (except that the Europeans launched a satellite that's attempting to do this too):

Aquarius
NASA's mission to study ocean surface salinity

Let's hope (and I am hoping) that tomorrow is the dawning of this particular age of Aquarius.

(And I sure wish that they put emergency recovery parachutes on expensive satellite missions. How much more does that cost the mission if the satellite that's being launched -- and occasionally lost on launch -- is worth a couple hundred million dollars????? Am I the only one that ever thought this?)