I’ve had my fill of chocolate cake (delicious) and of crowds (they seemed to come in waves, and they all seemed to center around the various 30-inch monitors scattered about the Operations Center), but I have not had my fill of new images of Mars. We are seeing such amazing detail. Some people may laugh that we are excited about seeing rocks, but this new ability to see boulders from orbit is a breakthrough in Mars remote sensing. With HiRISE, we begin to bridge the gap between the imaging abilities of orbiters and those of rovers.

Three things I am most looking forward to today:

• high resolution images of Mars from the HiRISE camera;
• chocolate cake; and
• all the visiting team members, press, and other guests participating in the excitement.

The images that start arriving today should be 10 times higher resolution than the test images we took in March. The chocolate cake we get on special occasions is better than any other desert except cheesecake. Finally, it is great to see face to face our remote team members, and it is nice to have our building fill up with visitors.

Now it is time for a bagel, the fourth thing I was looking forward to today.