Author: Willem

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Monday/ at Expo 2025 Osaka 🤗

I made it to Expo 2025 Osaka!
It’s hot and it’s crowded with very, very long lines at most pavilions— the ones that allow you in without a reservation, that is.
Entrance to the top-rated pavilions are pre-allocated by a lottery system. I struck out despite diligently applying, as far out as three months before my visit today.

No matter, once you have made it into the entrance gate (with 180,000 others), you are in a world onto its own, inside the Grand Ring. The Ring is the world’s largest wooden structure, constructed on Yumeshima (夢洲), the artificial island located in Osaka Bay.

The USA pavilion is a structure designed by Trahan Architects with two triangular wings and a raised translucent cube flanking a central plaza. It features video imagery that features the Plains, the mountains and the cities in the US— and hey! Seattle’s Pike Place market made an appearance as well. 

I was mesmerized by the installation of shiny cubes called null². The sun bounced off the surfaces, and a low sound was emitted from the structure.
Developed by Yoichi Ochiai, the pavilion’s structure is based on a cubic grid of voxels measuring 2 to 8 m (6 ft to 26 ft) wide. The facade is covered with a membrane that resembles a mirror.  [Source: Wikipedia]

Look for a few images (towards the end) beamed out from the enormous high-resolution screen outside the Korea pavilion. The three-story pavilion has a high-resolution screen on its facade that is 27 m (89 ft) wide. The screen displays on a spectacular series of animated images and videos.

South Africa withdrew from Expo 2025 Osaka in late 2024 despite repeated invitations from the Japanese government, citing the country’s ‘financial constraints’. 

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Sunday/ shinkansen to Osaka 🚅

All went well with my train ride to Osaka.
It is an amazing experience to travel at 175 mph (280 km/h) on the tracks, with the landscape flying by the window.

A handy map from the free wifi on the shinkansen. Those lines are just names for the shinkansen* between different cities. Nozomi shinkansen (the express train with the fewest stops) on the Tōkaidō Shinkansen line from Shinagawa to Osaka stop at Shin-Yokohama (where I was yesterday), Nagoya, and Kyoto before arriving at Shin-Osaka.
It was 2 hrs 20 mins from Shinagawa station to Shin-Osaka.
*Shinkansen (新幹線) in Japanese means ‘new trunk line’ or ‘new main line’, but this word is used to describe both the railway lines the trains run on and the trains themselves. In English, the trains are also known as the bullet train.
Taxis, six abreast, at the taxi stand at the Nagoya station. Uber is not big in Japan, but you do see Uber branded taxis. Go Taxi is the app of choice for ordering a ride share taxi in Japan.
This is the 五重塔 (Gojū-no-tō) or Five-storied Pagoda at Tō-ji Temple in Koyoto.
It is known as the tallest wooden tower in Japan and I had a nice view of it from my train seat as we left the Kyoto station.
I have arrived at Shin-Osaka station. I’m just catching my breath and looking for the way to the taxi stand. There is a local train line to the hotel from here, but it’s way too warm outside to walk even four or five blocks with all my luggage in tow. I’m heading to the taxi stand.
Looking towards the sunset at Dotonbori Bridge.
Earlier, I had checked into my hotel by the Chuo line (that runs to the 2025 Osaka Expo, where I will go to on Monday and Tuesday). The metro stations were swamped with people, and one can see that the metro had added all kinds of signage and directions for the train riders to the Expo to the stations, to try to better manage the congestion.
There is a nice old-fashioned neon sign at Dotonbori Bridge.
It doesn’t show too much in these pictures, but there were throngs of tourists in Dotonbori Street, the vibrant and busy thoroughfare in the heart of Osaka known for its neon signs, entertainment, and wide variety of eateries.
I love the dragon.
Off to the side, and just a block or two away, are quiet alleys that also have restaurants and izakayas (a type of informal Japanese pub that serves alcoholic drinks like sake and beer along with a variety of small snacks).
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Saturday/ shinkansen to Yokohama 🚅

Yokohama is south of Tokyo, and one of the first Japanese ports that opened to foreign trade, in 1859.
I made a run there on Saturday morning on the Nozomi shinkansen out of Shinagawa station— a trial run of sorts, for my trip to Osaka on Sunday.
It’s 19 km (12 miles) and only 18 minutes from station to station. A trip by car would take about 40 minutes.

I bought my tickets at Shinagawa at the machine. (The online website does not accept my US credit card.) This is the return ticket portion, and it was very complicated to use. An attendant helped me buy a return ticket for a specific date, time and train, and then I had to put it on top of this one, and both into the slot at the ticket gate to make the gate open up for me. Yikes! Too complicated. 
I have an electronic ticket for Sunday’s run to Osaka (with a QR code), and that should work much better.
Incoming! Pay attention people, here comes the train.
The train has 16 cars. I have a reserved seat* ticket, and I am at the gate for Car No 6. There’s the seat map as well, like the ones for an airplane when you pick your seat online. *The tickets for unreserved seats are cheaper, but you might get booted from your seat by a reserved seat ticket holder and then have to stand all the way.
Built for speed. The N700 series is a Japanese Shinkansen high-speed train with tilting capability developed jointly by Japan Rail Central and JR West, for use on the Tōkaidō and San’yō Shinkansen lines. It has been in operation since 2007.
Inside it looks like an airplane. This car has ‘Ordinary’ seats. The ‘First Class’ seats are a little bigger.
All right, we’re skipping ahead all the way to the Yokohama Air Cabin cableway. A lot has happened since I stepped out of the shinkansen at Shin-Yokohama station. I boarded the local Blue Line and went seven stops to Sakuragicho station, and then walked 5 minutes to where I could board the Air Cabin cableway.
This is the view from the end of the Air Cabin cableway, where there is a 6-story shopping mall complex called Yokohama World Porters. The tall square building is Yokohama Landmark Tower, which stands at 296 meters (971 feet) high. It was Japan’s tallest building from its completion in 1993 until 2014.
A look outside the shinkansen window, on my way back to Shinagawa. The rooftops and steel trusses and pylons flash by at high speed.
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Friday/ Shinjuku 🚆

The rain was relentless on Friday here in Tokyo.
I ran out to Shinjuku train station in the morning and got lost inside the enormous station— before getting soaked in the torrential rain outside of it. 😱

Come early evening the rain was over, though, and I went back to see if I could navigate the station better, and to take a few photos.

The view outside my hotel room in the morning. The top of Tokyo Tower is hidden in the low clouds.
Ooh! .. not looking good out here on the ground, I am thinking.
It is mid-morning and I am on the way to Shinagawa station on the hotel’s shuttle bus.
A colorful mural inside Shinjuku station.
There is no lack of directions to the myriad train lines and exits in Shinjuku station, but Shinjuku Station has over 200 exits and many platforms of different shapes, spread out over a large area, along with department stores covering nearly all sides.
I tried to have Google Maps give me walking directions, and it worked— until it said ‘If there is no GPS signal, navigation may stop working’. Yes. No sh**.
A mural inside Shinjuku.
Looking for a used car? Use the Car Sensor app.
The characters and manga style are from the iconic series City Hunter, which is being used here in a parody/comedic fashion to draw attention.
All right! By sunset (6.02 pm) the rain was gone, and now I’m going to run out to Shinjuku one more time.
This is the exit I had looked for in vain this morning: the South East Entrance by the Lumine 2 store. I am on my way to Takashimaya Times Square nearby.
A street-level view of the pedestrian crossing at the South East Entrance.
I walked several hundred yards now, further to the south, where there is an overlook of the railway lines going into the station.
The clock tower located near Takashimaya Times Square is on the NTT Docomo Yoyogi Building. It’s just a day or two until September’s full moon.
I made it back to Shinagawa Station and now heading back to the hotel. No rain!
Check out the sleek billboard above the Hollywood pachinko parlor. It advertises an even sleeker, faster bullet train that is coming— able to fly at 500 km/h (311 mph) on the tracks.
The almost-full moon over a gate in the Japanese garden on the hotel grounds.
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Thursday/ Akihabara and Tokyo Station 🚆

There was drizzle on and off here in Tokyo on Thursday, at a damp 85°F (30 °C).
Outside, I could only take pictures here and there with my big camera, but managed to get a few of the iconic 1914 Tokyo Station building (extensively renovated and restored in 2012).
I also made my first run to the Yodobashi Akiba store in Akihabara.

Nice infographic from the hotel room TV. The pink blobs are Japan’s main islands. That’s Tokyo in the bottom right corner, showing that the 30 °C is down 7°C from yesterday (85 °F , down from 99 °F). Yay! .. even though it still feels very warm and humid. (And are those little characters chickens?)
This is about 9.30 am and I caught the tail end of the morning rush hour into, and out of Shinagawa station.
Office workers and a few others (me) streaming out of Shinagawa station. Walk on the sides, if you are coming into the station, said the display screen.
All right, now I’m heading down to the Yamanote Line— the loop line with Shinagawa station on it, near my hotel. This line has been in service for 140 years now (constructed 1885) and is used by some 4 million people every day. The train had left just a minute ago.
Hello, Yodobashi Akiba! It is by Akihabara station, 8 stops to the north of Shinagawa station.
The toys for kids of all ages are on the 6th floor. The bank of pink claw machines was not there two years ago when I last visited.
In Japan, claw machines are most commonly called “UFO catchers” (ユーフォーキャッチャー) or “crane games” (クレーンゲーム). The term “UFO catcher” comes from the appearance of the claw mechanism, which resembles a UFO descending to capture a prize, a term popularized by Sega when they introduced the game in 1985.
[From Wikipedia]
I bought a few of these Takara Tomy animal figures: the lion, the cheetah, a gorilla, a peacock, a shoebill stork.
Help! The shoebill stork fell down (is its bill too big and heavy?) and someone needs to come and fix the display case. The chameleon figure (bottom) has a movable tongue that can be pulled out and pushed back in. Nice. I now regret I did not get the chameleon, as well.
On the way back on the Yamanote line, I saw Tokyo Tower out of the train window by Hamamatsucho station. It seemed nearby and I stepped out and walked the five or six there— kind of regrettting it, because it started to drizzle. This green space near the Tower is called Shiba Park.
I’m standing under a Himalayan cedar, and that’s the Buddhist temple called Zojo-ji Temple.
From Wikipedia: At its peak the temple grounds had more than 120 buildings, but following the decline of Buddhism during the Meiji period (1868-1912), most of them burned down during the bombing of Tokyo in World War II. Reconstruction began after the war, with the Daiden (great hall) being rebuilt in 1974.
Here’s the Himalayan cedar. A plaque by the tree notes that General Grant (18th President of the United States) planted this tree when he visited Zojo-ji Temple as a guest in 1879 (that’s 146 years ago).  The main gate to the grounds is under renovation and enclosed in a sheet metal building behind the tree.
A cemetery by the temple, presumably with ashes from the deceased. The cemetery at Zojo-ji Temple holds the mausoleums of six Tokugawa shoguns* and their families, serving as the family temple for the Tokugawa clan.
*The shogun (short for Sei-i Taishōgun, 征夷大将軍) was the supreme military and political leader of Japan, ruling for nearly 700 years. The rule of the shoguns ended in 1868 with the Meiji Restoration, which was triggered by growing internal discontent and the disruptive arrival of Western powers.
Dai-Nokotsudo, or Shariden, is where the bones of deceased are stored. It is made of stone and was created in 1933.
Here are several pictures of the Tokyo station building, taken late afternoon and early evening. Tokyo Station is surrounded by many modern glass and steel office towers.

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Wednesday/ arrival in Tokyo 🗼

It was a smooth and uneventful flight and we arrived 30 minutes early at Tokyo’s Haneda airport.
It was a short ride (20 mins) on the Keikyu train line to get me to Shinagawa station. I had set up my transit card (Suica card) from my visit two years ago as a digital transit card in my iPhone’s wallet. That way I can tap the reader at the gate with my phone, without even needing to unlock it.

Even though it was only a 6 or 7 minute walk to the hotel from Shinagawa station’s exit, I waited for the hotel’s shuttle bus.
The heat was still oppressive at 8 o’clock— 85 °F (30 °C) and high humidity.

P.S. I turned on my eSIM phone line from global mobile data service provider Ubigi and it works great— a first for me, to use an eSIM phone line for international travel on my iPhone. So it’s farewell to the expensive international service provided by AT&T (expensive, as in 3x or 4x more expensive! Yikes).

Top to bottom:
Smoky skies over Washington State;
Flying almost due west for 10 hours across the Pacific Ocean;
Welcome signs at the exit of the arrivals hall at Haneda airport.
At the gate at Handa airport’s Terminal 3

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Tuesday/ at the airport 🛫

I made it out of the house and to the airport (thanks, Bryan!) and here are two pictures taken from the South Terminal at Seattle-Tacoma airport.

I am in the lounge and cannot see the gate where I’m departing out of. Hopefully the All Nippon Airlines bird has pulled up to the gate already. When I got here an hour and a half ago an Asiana Airlines flight (Korea’s No 2 airline) was just boarding.

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Monday/ Japan’s scorching summer 🔥

My bags are packed, and I will fly west across the  International Date Line to Tokyo tomorrow.

It’s already Tuesday in Japan, and the highs are going to touch 99°F  (37°C) in Tokyo. By the time I arrive there on Wednesday evening, there will be a little respite from the heat, with rain on Thursday and Friday.

The Japan Meteorological Agency says the average nationwide temperature for the three months of June, July, and August was 2.36 °C (4.3 °F) higher than normal — the largest increase on record since comparable data became available in 1898.

From Google AI Mode, answering the question ‘Why is it so warm in Japan this summer?”
Specific meteorological patterns contributed to the long, intense heat this summer.
High-pressure systems: The Pacific High and the Tibetan High, two powerful high-pressure systems, extended over Japan during the summer. When they occur simultaneously, they create a “tall” high-pressure zone that suppresses cloud formation and produces prolonged periods of clear skies and sunny conditions.
Warming ocean currents: The ocean surrounding Japan has been abnormally warm. The Kuroshio (Japan Current), a warm current flowing northward from the Philippines, has been particularly active, holding the country in a “vice grip of warm water” and driving up temperatures even well into autumn.
[Still from national broadcaster NHK World with a meteorologist explaining the effects of the two overlapping high-pressure systems]
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Sunday/ hazy skies ☁️

There goes August.
I walked down to the Melrose Avenue overlook at sunset to take a few photos of the sun setting behind the Olympic Mountains in the hazy sky.
The high was 76°F (24°C) here in the city today, air quality Moderate.
P.S. This is the last of the sunset photos for now!
I will soon travel to the Far East— and take all kinds of pictures with my new camera.

Sunset is now at 7.50 pm.
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Saturday/ don’t be an entitled jerk 😲

From the New York Post by reporters Chris Harris, Bridget Reilly, Anna Young and Shane Galvin:
The “entitled” jerk who seemingly snatched a hat autographed by tennis star Kamil Majchrzak from a young boy at the US Open has been identified as a Polish millionaire.  (My note: I edited out his name).
Majchrzak, fresh off his victory over ninth seed Karen Khachanov when the incident unfolded Thursday night, confirmed his identity to The Post on Saturday and said he was initially oblivious to the now-viral snafu.
“Obviously it was some kind of confusion,” the tennis pro said, adding that the millionaire sponsors his tennis federation in Poland.

[Photo and caption from the New York Post online]
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Friday/ Labor Day weekend 😎

Happy Friday.
It’s Labor Day weekend here in the United States— the unofficial end of summer.

There was plenty of action on Day 6 of the US Open. Ben Stiller and Steve Carell were seen in the stands today.
Coqodaq is an upscale NYC restaurant that serves Korean-style fried chicken and champagne from a location in the lower bowl concourse of Arthur Ashe Stadium.
Reportedly one of the most sought-after food items at this year’s Open, is their chicken nuggets garnished with caviar ($100).

Here is the Carlos Alcaraz 2025 US Open look: a buzz cut, a pink tank top and plum shorts and shoes. He is through to the Sweet Sixteen without dropping a set, so far.
P.S. Medvedev was fined $42,000 for his conduct in his first-round match on Sunday. (Should it not have been a much bigger fine?)
[Live update reporting from The Athletic/ The New York Times, photo by Getty Images]
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Thursday/ stamps from the Netherlands 🇳🇱

Here’s the stamp catalog information for two sets of stamps from the Netherlands that each feature a 150th anniversary.

The Netherlands: The 150th Anniversary of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute, KNMI
Issued Jan. 31, 2004
Perf. 14¼x14¾ |Se tenant pair |Litho.|No watermark
#1165 A455 0.39€ Multicolored |Rain (‘regen’, rainbow at left)
#1166 A455 0.39€ Multicolored |Sun (‘zon’, rainbow at right), showers (‘buien’) in margin 
Note: The seven colors of the rainbow, listed from longest to shortest wavelength, are Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet.

The Netherlands: The 150th Anniversary of the Birth of Vincent Van Gogh
Issued Jan. 2, 2003
Perf. 14¾ |Sheets of 10 different stamps |Design: Gracia Lebbink |Litho.|Engraving: House of Questa |No watermark
#1142i A438 0.39€ Multicolored |View of Auvers, 1890
#1142j A438 0.39€ Multicolored |Wheat Field with Crows, 1890
[Sources: stampworld.com, Scott 2018 Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue, Vol. 5]

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Wednesday/ the AC is broken 🥵

The warm weather of the last four or five days is behind us here in Seattle.
The high was 78°F (26°C) today.

These stills are from a Japanese anime called
The AC Is Broken EP 392 | Atashin’chi | [ENG sub]
[Anime] Atashin’chi Official Channel on YouTube

Background (from the YouTube page):
The Tachibanas are the quintessential Japanese family, unassuming and infinitely relatable.
There’s Mother, who isn’t the best cook, and is quite lazy, and Father, who always leaves the bathroom door ajar. The high school daughter Mikan seems a bit of a buffoon, and the middle schooler son Yuzuhiko appears to be quite the cold fish at first glance. They’re a bit peculiar— but they are a family everyone could relate to.

In this episode, Father comes home to find Mother exhausted on the sofa.
The AC is broken, and the repairman can only come out tomorrow.
Luckily, the ACs in the kids’ rooms still work, and Father could sleep in son Yuzuhiko’s room, and Mother in daughter Mikan’s room.

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Tuesday/ three queens 👑👑👑

Here’s a weird chess game: one in which I ended up with three queens.
I kept thinking Oscar (the Duolingo chess program bot) would throw in the towel and resign, but no.
He let me promote two pawns to become queens, and then let me checkmate him.
(Note: Yes, Oscar is obviously not a grandmaster. I will have to keep playing and be patient. He is supposed to improve his chess prowess if he gets beaten too frequently by me.)

I had a queen and a rook, (and an extra pawn), and Oscar had nothing. He should have already resigned three or four moves ago, before two of my pawns reached the eighth row, and were promoted to queens.
So I simply boxed his king in with two queens, and then delivered check mate. The player with an overwhelming advantage need to be careful to avoid a stalemate (a draw). A stalemate happens if the player whose turn it is has no legal moves (such as a move that will put the king in check).
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Monday/ a rough start to the US Open 🎾

On day one of the 2025 tournament, 2021 champion Daniil Medvedev provided a signal example by inciting the crowd to delay his match against France’s Benjamin Bonzi for six minutes — while he was down match point. A photographer walked onto the court between Bonzi’s first and second serves. Umpire Greg Allensworth ruled that Bonzi should get a first serve. Irate, Medvedev approached Allensworth’s chair, whipping up the crowd to boo and chant. After berating Allensworth, Medvedev returned to the baseline. Bonzi got ready to serve. The crowd didn’t stop.

– Matthew Futterman writing for The Athletic in the New York Times, saying that the Medvedev incident is a signal example of the complete absence of tennis etiquette at the US Open

What also happened— after Medvedev had lost the first-round match against Bonzi in five sets on Sunday— is that he smashed his racket on the court and against the bench that he sat on. Still enraged and not satisfied with the damage to it, he went on and smashed the broken frame for a few minutes more, to smithereens.

By the way: Medvedev was fined AUD 76,000 ($49,000) in this year’s Australian Open for smashing a tennis net camera in the first round, and for unsportsmanlike conduct in the second round.

Medvedev getting the crowd riled up at the end of the third set, tennis racket still intact. At the post-match press conference, Medvedev refused to speak about his outburst against the umpire, his taunting of the booing fans, and destroying his racket.
He said “I’m getting a big enough fine. So if I speak I’m in big trouble, so I’m not going to speak”.
[Picture posted on The Athletic/ The New York Times]
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Sunday/ another sunset ☀️

Since it is Sun-day, I guess I am permitted to post more sunset pictures.
And it was too warm to go out in the middle of the day!

This is tonight’s sunset over Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill, that I took from a spot on Bellevue Ave East that overlooks the south end of Lake Union.

Shot with Sony α7CR w. Tamron 28-200mm F2.8-5.6 lens
f-stop: f/5.6 |Exposure time: 1/200 s |ISO speed: ISO-200 |Focal length: 85 mm | Max aperture: 4.3359375 |Metering mode: Spot
Out-of-camera .jpg (9,504 x 6,336 pixels) reduced to 2,400 x 1,600 pixels.
One more picture, this one taken with the exposure dialed down to make the image ‘black and light’. 
Shot with Sony α7CR w. Tamron 28-200mm F2.8-5.6 lens
f-stop: f/5.6 |Exposure time: 1/2000 s |ISO speed: ISO-200 |Focal length: 85 mm | Max aperture: 4.3359375 |Metering mode: Spot
Out-of-camera .jpg (9,504 x 6,336 pixels) reduced to 2,400 x 1,600 pixels.
This is a 1,656 x 2,944-pixel crop from the above image (but from the full-frame image captured by the sensor). It reveals that the little gnat above the setting sun is actually a helicopter.
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Saturday/ the bear necessities 🐻

Headlines and text by the New York Times. Photo by El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office.

The bear, which the sheriff’s office nicknamed Fuzzy, sampled as many flavors as it could get its paws on, the authorities said.

Tubs lay overturned, ice cream half eaten, the authorities said. Paw prints stretched across the black-and-white floor like stick stamps.

The deputies startled the bear, which stopped eating but could not find the exit. They shouted and shined their lights. Finally, the animal lumbered through the front door and back into the dark, the authorities said. The deputies followed to shoo it away from nearby buildings and into the forest.

—Mark Walker writing for the New York Times, about a bear found in the ice cream parlor at 4 am in the morning at Camp Richardson, a 128-acre resort in South Lake Tahoe, California.

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Friday/ sailing at sunset 🌇

Happy Friday.
We are into another stretch of warm and sunny days.
The high today was 86°F (30°C).
I went down to the Seattle waterfront for sunset— now at 8.08 pm.

Looking out over Elliott Bay from Pier 56 on the Seattle waterfront, right after the sun disappeared behind the Olympic Mountains (to the right, out of the picture’s frame).
Shot with Sony α7CR w. Tamron 28-200mm F2.8-5.6 lens
f-stop: f/5.6 |Exposure time: 1/125 s |ISO speed: ISO-200 |Focal length: 200 mm | Max aperture: 4.96875 |Metering mode: Spot
Out-of-camera .jpg cropped and reduced to 30% of original size.
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Thursday/ a bird’s-eye view 🦅

Here’s a bird’s-eye view picture of Seattle’s waterfront, that appeared in today’s Wall Street Journal.

Laura Landro writes: Seattle has largely completed a more than $1 billion redevelopment of the 26-block stretch along Puget Sound’s sweeping Elliott Bay, which includes the replacement of a 100-year-old sea wall that had been badly damaged by an earthquake and erosion. Waterfront redevelopment projects are in various stages of planning, design and construction in large metropolitan areas including New York, Boston, Chicago and Washington, D.C., as well as midsize and smaller cities like Norfolk, Va., Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Cleveland and Kansas City, Mo.

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Wednesday/ Viking I at 50 🛰

It’s been 50 years since the launch of Viking I, the first US spacecraft ever to land successfully on Mars.
Research from recent years suggests that the lander touched down where a Martian megatsunami deposited materials 3.4 billion years ago.

A model of Viking 1.
(The remains of the original Viking 1 lander are on the surface of Mars, where it had landed on July 20, 1976. It was a stationary lander and did not roam around. It did have an orbiter with solar panels that completed 1,485 orbits around Mars. While it no longer transmits data, the orbiter continues to orbit the planet! )
Construction of the Viking 1 spacecraft was done primarily by the private company Martin Marietta (now Lockheed Martin). The team worked for six years to build the ground-breaking spacecraft. The cost came to roughly $1 billion— about $6 billion in today’s dollars.
[Image from Lockheed Martin, posted on space.com]
The Mars landscape, as seen from the camera of the Viking I lander.
[Image from California Science Center website]
This timeline was compiled for MSN online by Dede Wilson:

1. The Historic Liftoff
The countdown ended in a roar of fire and smoke as Viking 1 lifted off from Cape Canaveral on August 20, 1975. The Titan IIIE-Centaur rocket carried both an orbiter and a lander, marking NASA’s boldest step toward exploring Mars.

2. The Long Cruise to Mars
Viking 1 traveled nearly 11 months through space before arriving at Mars. This interplanetary cruiseinvolved careful navigation to ensure the spacecraft reached its target orbit with pinpoint accuracy.

3. Mars Orbit Arrival
On June 19, 1976, Viking 1’s orbiter fired its engine to settle into orbit around Mars. From this vantage point, it began photographing the surface to find a safe and scientifically valuable landing site.

4. The First Soft Landing on Mars
On July 20, 1976, exactly seven years after Apollo 11’s Moon landing, Viking 1’s lander touched down in Chryse Planitia, becoming the first fully successful Mars lander in history.

5. Stunning Panoramas of a New World
Viking 1 sent back the first high-resolution panoramic photos of Mars, revealing a rocky, rust-colored landscape beneath a salmon-pink sky, images that captured the imagination of people worldwide.

6. Searching for Life
Equipped with biology experiments, Viking 1 attempted to detect signs of life in Martian soil. The results were puzzling: some tests gave unexpected positive readings, but most indicated no organics, sparking debates that continue to this day.

7. Mapping Mars from Above
The orbiter mapped vast swaths of the planet, from giant volcanoes like Olympus Mons to canyons deeper than Earth’s Grand Canyon. These images shaped our understanding of Martian geology.

8. Years of Operation
Viking 1’s lander operated for over six Earth years (2,245 Martian sols) making it the longest-running Mars surface mission until 2010, when NASA’s Opportunity rover broke the record.

9. A Sudden Goodbye
In November 1982, a faulty command ended communications with the lander. The orbiter had already completed its mission, but Viking 1’s contributions to science remained secure.

10. Inspiring Future Mars Missions
From Pathfinder to Perseverance, every Mars mission since Viking 1 has built on its legacy. It proved we could land safely, operate for years, and study Mars in depth.