Spirit has left the lander. Now the martian explorer is safely on Mars and out of the lander, scientists are eager to play and learn.

NASA takes a lot of flack, sometimes deservedly so, but they also deserve a lot of credit. Imagine the patience and skill it took to design the entire mission and ensure everything went perfectly. Merely confirming that Spirit had safely left the lander was an exercise in patience.

The team had sent the command to leave the lander at 3:21 a.m., then waited for more than an hour and a half before learning the results.

It took the craft only 78 seconds to travel the 10 feet from the lander onto the surface, but the craft then had to locate the sun, take pictures of its surroundings and wait for a passing Mars orbiter before it could phone home with confirmation of its success.

Kudos to NASA for an excellent job so far. Hopefully their success will continue with Opportunity, which is scheduled to land in nine days on the opposite side of Mars.

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