Dear Orson and Zoe, Fifteen years ago, when your mom and I started Wired, you weren't even born. And now look at you — you guys were playing Go Fish with the original crew at the magazine's 15th anniversary party.

Back in 1993, we had only the slightest glimmer of what the Internet would eventually become. But we had a very clear idea what Wired was supposed to be about: the people, companies, and ideas driving the Digital Revolution. The results of that revolution — Googling your homework, iChatting with your cousins in Paris, buying your Lego NXT off eBay — seem like so much background noise to you now, but back then it was a big deal. In the very first issue, I wrote, "The Digital Revolution is whipping through our lives like a Bengali typhoon."

Got a lot of grief for that typhoon reference — as if it were a pretentious exaggeration instead of the understatement it turned out to be. Should have said the Digital Revolution was ripping through our lives like the meteor that extinguished the dinosaurs. Practically every institution that our society is based on, from the local to the supranational, is being rendered obsolete. This is the world you are inheriting.

Louis Rossetto, the founder and former publisher of Wired, tells how the magazine was formed out of San Francisco's early '90s digital underground.

We at Wired saw it coming, because our mission was to connect our readers to the reality of our times. It's the evolutionary function of media: Those individuals/tribes/societies that are most connected to the larger world, as it really is, are most likely to survive and thrive — and move on to the next level in the big game of life. We were successful as an enterprise not because we used eye-popping fluorescent colors (although that didn't hurt) but because we did the hard work of accurately describing the world as it was changing. Of course, we didn't get everything right.

1. The End of History Francis Fukuyama proclaimed that history ended with the demise of the Soviet Union. The future would be characterized not by the literal but only the figurative war of ideas. We believed him.

We were wrong. Wired failed to see how a new generation of fanatical geeks would use the Internet in their effort to take over the world. Instead of ending, history looped back on itself, and we are now confronted by a recrudescent and particularly virulent religious ideology straight out of the Middle Ages.

We recognized a world in transition, but we missed the danger in front of us. We eschewed conventional wisdom, but we couldn't escape it. Takeaway: Be contrarian, and then be contrarian again.

2. The Death of Media We predicted the demise of what we called Old Media (aka mainstream/lamestream/dinosaur media) over and over again, and yet it's still alive. True, we said the Internet would erode Old Media's monopoly on interpreting reality, and we were right about that: If you're surfing Boing Boing, you're not reading the paper edition of The New York Times. The result is imploding Old Media and exploding Google ad revenue.

But we underestimated how slowly Old Media would auger in — and how irresponsible it would become in its death throes. As John Perry Barlow put it on our first TV show, the purpose of media isn't, ultimately, to inform; it's to sell our eyeballs to advertisers. And how better to do that — if your monopoly is being eroded by this newfangled Internet — than to scare the shit out of us? Then we're so paralyzed that we stick around through the commercials.

Faced with fierce competition for those eyeballs, Old Media is hawking the apocalypse: The world is inundated by war, poverty, destruction, fascist Republicans! It's about to be swept away by tidal waves unleashed by melting polar ice caps! More on how this is humanity's own fault — after the break.

Wired Promo From 1993: This publicly aired promotion for Wired in its debut year, 1993, shows a style that was frantic but advanced for its time, swiftly conveying the mission and content of the magazine.

3. The Death of Politics We envisioned the eclipse of the nation-state. Electronic networks were enabling the friction-free movement of capital and ideas. This would take power out of the hands of politicians and bureaucrats and put it in the hands of super-empowered individuals and networked communities.

Wrong. Governments are still here, presumptuous and bossy as ever. And what's worse, although the zoo door was pried open and the monkeys peered out, we chose not to step into the brave new tomorrow, preferring to go on playing games inside our cage.

So instead of spending a decade rebuilding civil society — reinventing how we resolve conflicts and build consensus — we got MoveOn and Daily Kos and Soros-funded 527s that divert immense energy into the mud of politics, all in the naked pursuit of political power. This has resulted in one of the most toxic and least productive eras of public discourse in our history.

1. We Called the Long Boom In 1997, we published "The Long Boom." Some pundits snarked that it was dotcom-stock boosterism. Instead, it pinpointed what was behind the unprecedented increase in material well-being for most of humanity: the spread of liberal democracy, globalization, and technological revolutions. The boom began with the introduction of the personal computer, and it will continue until at least 2020, when you two might have kids of your own.

Skeptical? Recent reports say that illiteracy worldwide has fallen by half since 1970 and is now at an all-time low of 18 percent; more people live in free countries than ever before; the number of armed conflicts worldwide has declined by almost half since the early '90s. Indeed, the average human born in 2025 will live to be 73 — 25 years longer than one born in 1955.

There's a lot of noise in the media about how the world is going to hell. Remember, the truth is out there, and it's not necessarily what the politicians, priests, or pundits are telling you.

Wired Promo From 1997: A later promotional video from 1997 features some of the big players, such as co-publisher Jane Metcalfe, cofounder Louis Rossetto, executive editor Kevin Kelly, designers John Plunkett and Barbara Kuhr, deputy editor John Bartelle, and associate publisher Drew Schutte, discussing the challenges and rewards of putting out the magazine.

2. We Foresaw the One Machine We didn't name it; founding executive editor Kevin Kelly came up with the term only recently. But we certainly predicted a new planetary consciousness based on humans using ever-more-powerful PCs and networks. Take our current hardware/wetware mashup: 1 billion CPUs on the Internet; 8 terabytes of traffic with 2 million emails per second; 3 billion cell phone users; 264 exabytes of magnetic storage. The One Machine now has a million times as many transistors as your brain has neurons. Let's say that gives it processing power equivalent to a single human brain — 1 HB; by 2040, the One Machine should surpass 6 billion HB, exceeding the processing power of humanity. In an era when even progressives are trying to stop time to preserve some notion of planetary perfection, it's clarifying (and humbling) to note that evolution has not ceased — and that we are not evolution's ultimate product.

3. We Knew Tech Would Change How We Relate We wrote about how every institution — businesses, schools, churches, the courts — was being pounded to obsolescence by the Digital Revolution. So we stressed the need to join together and not just vote but directly rebuild civic society — how we live together as human beings — for the 21st century.

We tried to describe new ways of relating to one another — how we do business, how we invest, how we can defend, educate, cure, shelter, and govern ourselves. We coined the term Netizen to describe this new social actor. We invented the Digital Nation, the Netizens' new homeland. And we championed new heroes, chronicled new successes, and encouraged those struggling to create this new world.

Millennial Moments: In an unusual, Zen-like campaign, Wired tells us, "This is the age where you can finally do it all."

Fair trade, the organic movement, pressure on manufacturers to improve conditions for their workers overseas, blogging, social networks, Surfrider Foundation, One Economy, Amnesty International, One Laptop per Child, networked homeschooling, cracking the human genome, YouTube social media as a means of creating new political consciousness, distributed artistic expression, up to and including the One Machine — these are all reinventions of the institutions we rely on as social animals.

If Wired was the Scout for a generation, Kevin Kelly was the scout for Wired. One chewy chunk of fresh kill he brought back early on was a book by William Strauss and Neil Howe called Generations. It concluded its generational history of the United States with the Millennials, members of the next major demographic cohort, the first of whom were born around 1980.

Strauss and Howe's description of Millennials inspired us: "This generation will show more teamlike spirit and more like-mindedness in action than most Americans then alive will recall ever having seen in young people... Millennials will carry out whatever crisis mission they are assigned — as long as they can connect it with their own secular blueprint for progress. If crisis brings war, soldiers will obey orders without complaint. If it involves environmental danger or natural resource depletion, young scientists will make historic breakthroughs. If the crisis is mostly economic, the youthful labor force will be a mighty engine of renewed American prosperity. Whatever their elder-bestowed mission, these rising youths will not disappoint. Assuming the crisis turns out well, Millennials will be forever honored as a generation of civic achievers."

One of the original visionaries of Wired magazine, Kevin Kelly, reflects on where it all started and how it's evolved in 15 years.

What's heartening to me, Orson and Zoe, is that even though you and your peers have grown up watching your parents become self-absorbed, hypocritical, and now plain crotchety and rancorous (not Jane and me, of course), and even if you stand in the rubble of the social institutions toppled by the Digital Revolution, your response is not the me-me-me of your parents' generation but us-us-us. Whether you're addressing climate change or serving in Iraq, you are simultaneously more traditionalist and future-forward, more practical and idealistic, than your parents.

The challenge is obvious, the dangers present, the need great. But be optimistic. I would say that, wouldn't I, since we were often accused during my time at Wired of being overly optimistic. But optimism is not false hope, it's a strategy for living. If you are optimistic about the future, you will step up and take responsibility and attempt to make it better for yourselves and your own children.

Yes, we didn't know it at the time, but we were making Wired for you.

All love, Dad

The Phoenix Mars Lander, which completed a heart-stopping, autonomous landing on the Martian surface on Sunday, has begun beaming pictures the millions of miles back to Earth.

If you missed the landing, this gallery should provide a photographic catch-up on a mission that is likely to allow scientists to examine extraterrestrial water for the first time ever during this initial exploration of a Martian polar region.

Now that the lander is in position, NASA will use the craft's robotic arm to dig into the red planet's regolith to look for the subsurface ice that scientists believe exists there. If they find it, instruments aboard the craft will melt the ice and analyze the water to look for organic compounds, which contain carbon, the building block of life.

These photos take an amazing path to get to your desktop. First, the Surface Stereoscopic Imager snaps them. Then the Lander sends data at about 15 kilobytes a second via an UHF antenna to two spacecraft orbiting Mars. The orbiters relay the data to NASA's Deep Space Network antenna arrays in Canberra Australia, Madrid, and in California's Mojave Desert.

Raw images are sent to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and posted to the Phoenix Mars Mission website.

Left: The small blue object in the center of the Martian Arctic plain pictured is NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander, as seen from above by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The lander touched down safely and scientists have been delighted to find all its instruments in working order. Now, NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory and University of Arizona scientists will race to do as much research as possible over the next three months before the Martian winter incapacitates the lander.

This image shows where the Phoenix Mars Lander touched down in the desolate northern polar region of Mars. The region was targeted as part of NASA's long-stated "follow the water" exploration strategy for Mars. Scientists believe that ice exists underneath the flat surface of this plain. The "polygonal cracking" visible in the picture has also been observed in permafrost terrains like the Siberian tundra, so scientists believe it results from seasonal freezing and thawing of surface ice.

While the Mars Phoenix Lander does not have a true video camera, NASA scientists can pan around a very high resolution image to create a video like this one of the Martian arctic plain.

In a space-exploration first, NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured the Phoenix Lander, and its parachute, during its descent to the Martian surface. It marks the first time that a spacecraft has visualized the descent of another craft.

After two previous landers were lost entering the Martian atmosphere, the Phoenix mission has gone smoothly.

In an image that has circulated around the world, this picture shows one of the Phoenix Mars Lander's "feet" settled on Martian rock and soil. It was essential that the craft land in an area where it could dig into the soil because the lander, unlike the Mars rovers, can't move. It appears that the area within the lander's reach -- a mere 160 square feet -- will provide scientists with their shot at touching Martian ice.

The lander touched down at 4:53 pm Pacific Time on May 25 in an arctic region called Vastitas Borealis. Some scientists believe the area was once covered with water in the distant Martian past. Now, it features polygonal patterns that look similar to icy ground in earth's arctic regions.

This image was one of the first color images released by NASA.

After nine months and 422 million miles of travel, the lander reached the ground near its intended touchdown spot. The Martian landscape around the landing site is barren except for small pebbles and polygonal lumps that are widely associated with permafrost regions on Earth.

Here we see one of the Phoenix Mars Lander's octagonal solar panels. After it touches down, the two panels unfold on either side of the spacecraft to unveil a total solar-cell area of 45 square feet. The panels are the sole means the craft has of recharging its two 25-amp-hour lithium-ion batteries. Each battery stores about five times as much power as your correspondent's MacBook battery, so the lander has about 10 MacBooks' worth of stored power.

This image shows a small-scale polygonal pattern in the ground near NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander. It was acquired on what NASA is calling Sol 0, the first Martian day of the mission.

While the rocky, lifeless surface is similar to images delivered by the Mars rovers, scientists believe the warping of the land is due to water ice under the surface. The prospective ice has raised hopes that some liquid water, which is required for life as we know it, exists under the surface.

"There's this idea that there are reservoirs of liquid water down there and as soon as you see liquid water, you say, 'Why couldn't there be microbes?'" Edward Young, the principal investigator of the UCLA IGPP Center for Astrobiology, told Wired.com. (Young is not involved with the Phoenix mission.)

Mars is roughly half the size of Earth, yet the Phoenix Mars Lander will only end up excavating a tiny living room-sized slice of the planet. Still, the lander is loaded with a variety of instruments, including a gas analyzer and a weather station, that scientists hope will turn this barren landscape into a rich scientific tapestry that adds whole new chapters to what we know about Mars, the rest of the solar system and the possibility for life on other planets.

After a decade of tough luck for Martian missions, Phoenix team members celebrate the craft's landing on Mars, May 25, 2008. Wired.com brought you live coverage of the team's giddy press conference.

This image is a screen capture taken from NASA TV just after radio signals were received from the lander.

Now, with the initial excitement of the landing over, the Phoenix team is settling in to do the heavy scientific lifting that got the mission $420 million in funding. Digging for ice could begin as early as next week, and that investigation could provide a host of surprises about the history of the water and life on Mars.

Like previous missions, the Phoenix Mars Lander has a message for future Martian explorers in the form of the mini-DVD that you see next to the American flag. It was created by the Planetary Society and contains video of Earth's visionaries like Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke talking about the future. For the earthbound present, NASA has embraced Twitter to send out status messages on the mission. The Mars Phoenix Twitter stream has amassed almost 8,000 followers.