[MNC]

double post

[Tea and Toast]

This was the first rover to make me realise how big the rovers are. From being a child, I always imagined them the size of a remote controlled car for some reason. Idiot.

[Neverender]

Well the other rovers were much smaller.

[RangersFan]

M.A.R.S. Mars bitches...

[derFeef]

This was the first rover to make me realise how big the rovers are. From being a child, I always imagined them the size of a remote controlled car for some reason. Idiot.

That's because they were/are really small :)
First rover is still trucking and sending pics, so good.

[Seep]

There's some here anyway, but no exact dates cause 2014 is still a while away. http://www.satelliteonthenet.co.uk/index.php/2014

Atlas V in August it is then. Thx again.

[SniperHunter]

Just read about the successful landing, I am so happy! Go Nasa!

[ElectricBlue187]

I still can't believe this worked. Amazing job NASA

This was the first rover to make me realise how big the rovers are. From being a child, I always imagined them the size of a remote controlled car for some reason. Idiot.

the other rovers were pretty small

[Gynoug79]

This is sooooo great ! Congrats NASA ! Somehow i hope the new rover is going visit the old one and gives him a tow...

[Bisnic]

I can't imagine the number of years the guys who planned the landing must have spent to make sure this would work on another fucking planet. A real bunch of genius over there at NASA.

Now we wait for color pictures and videos!

[RoadHazard]

Shit, I missed the landing. And I was really excited about it too. Damn.

[luxarific]

Really happy for them! Still can't quite believe Curiosity made it through such a complex landing - smart people and crazy ideas are awesome.

[HoosTrax]

Awww, couldn't NASA have gone all NBC-Olympics mode, and delayed the landing until primetime on the east coast? It was 3 or 4am here when it landed, just finding out about this now.

[Tom_Cody]

Does NASA have any major projects on the horizon on par with The Curiosity rover?

I guess the James Webb Space Telescope is a big deal. Are there any others?

[Smiles and Cries]

Does NASA have any major projects on the horizon on par with The Curiosity rover? I guess the James Webb Space Telescope is a big deal. Are there any others?

they can't really say until they have a new budget to work with

[Kyaw]

Does NASA have any major projects on the horizon on par with The Curiosity rover? I guess the James Webb Space Telescope is a big deal. Are there any others?

New Horizon should be arriving at Pluto in 2015. Other than that, I don't think there are any others.

[Bisnic]

New Horizon should be arriving at Pluto in 2015. Other than that, I don't think there are any others.

Only Pluto? It's gonna ignore Uranus and Neptune?

Oh well, at least we'll finally get a picture of it, although i feel its going to look like Mercury or something.

[Partial Gamification]

Does NASA have any major projects on the horizon on par with The Curiosity rover?

NASA Future Missions

The wildest idea I've heard seriously talked about is a thermal/submersible probe to explore subsurface oceans on Europa. Land a craft in the radiation and gravity maelstrom of Jupiter; then, use heating coils to melt through about a kilometer of ice; and then, deploy a submersible to explore the ocean for life. All this while establishing communications and relay links through the water, through the ice, and pretty far across the solar system.

I could speculate about metallic-ceramic cryogenically cooled spherical rovers for Venus and talk of designing aircraft for Mars but I bet the resources are going to get even better in the near term. The next amazing probe might not land in our lifetimes, but hopefully that is not the case.

Curiosity is an achievement for everybody on this planet, and even those select few on Newt Gingrich's Moon Enclave, too.

[Tom_Cody]

they can't really say until they have a new budget to work with

New Horizon should be arriving at Pluto in 2015. Other than that, I don't think there are any others.

I just spent some time clicking around NASA and JPL's sites. Here are some lists, though I really can't be spending time on this while I'm at work:

http://www.nasa.gov/missions/future/index.html

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/index.cfm?type=future
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/ind...?type=proposed

It is so frustrating to see what NASA could do with just a little more funding.



FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK

[Partial Gamification]

The technology has its limitations. A single chemical rockets is probably not going to get one there and back again. Fuel will need to be produced on Mars to really make return-trips more cost effective.

Here is a great video (by Stan Love) on the basics of the rocket science behind basically getting shot off the planet and falling toward a target.


I am so happy to have witnessed, virtually, this event!
Have a simple Haiku ( I think its correct):

Curiosity
Mars Science Laboratory
We dare mighty things

[Sirius]

Nice ^^

edit: my own -

4th Rock from the Sun,
New Challenger Approaching:
Curiosity.

[Oozer3993]

I thought it was clear that it was cynicism. Anyway, for the next Mars exploration, we should kickstart a new 8k 3D camera. And get James Cameron involved for the film material.

Fun fact, MSL almost had a James Cameron developed 3D camera. There just wasn't enough time.

[Oozer3993]

Does NASA have any major projects on the horizon on par with The Curiosity rover? I guess the James Webb Space Telescope is a big deal. Are there any others?

NASA is currently evaluating several options for a big mission in the 2020-2025 time frame. One is a mission to explore the moons of Jupiter, particularly Europa, which is believed to have large sub-surface water oceans. Another proposal would send a "hot air" balloon into the atmosphere of Titan, a moon of Saturn and one of the very few bodies in the solar system with a thick atmosphere.

EDIT: Dammit all, double post :(

[Partial Gamification]

4th Rock from the Sun, New Challenger Approaching: Curiosity.

Excellent!

[Razek]

NASA is currently evaluating several options for a big mission in the 2020-2025 time frame. One is a mission to explore the moons of Jupiter, particularly Europa, which is believed to have large sub-surface water oceans. Another proposal would send a "hot air" balloon into the atmosphere of Titan, a moon of Saturn and one of the very few bodies in the solar system with a thick atmosphere.

I kinda wish they would just save their money and gear all development towards putting objects in space easier.

Learning is fun, but there isn't much we can do if we even find anything out there. I think a practical space goal would be advisable.

[GaimeGuy]

Cannot express how nerve-racking it was sitting there with a room full of delegates, watching Mission Control live when the first signal of EDL sequence initiation arrived, 14min prior to scheduled landing - knowing that by that time Curiosity had already landed safely or crashed on Mars (14min for signal to arrive to Earth) I recall one of the landing site specialists announce that For 7 min it was pretty much a Schrödinger's Rover situation, both dead and alive on the Surface of Mars until further confirmation. Wow. What a historic milestone.. I still have goosebumps. EDIT: Raw goodness: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/

lol

[tarius1210]

Awww, couldn't NASA have gone all NBC-Olympics mode, and delayed the landing until primetime on the east coast? It was 3 or 4am here when it landed, just finding out about this now.

It landed at 1am EST. I slept for a couple hours and woke up for it. Im not missing out on history.

[DrFunk]

http://www.theonion.com/articles/mar...ate-mars,2072/

[Nesotenso]

was great watching this live and them celebrating.

Also had a feeling non-American gaffers would whine about something.

[maquiladora]

was great watching this live and them celebrating. Also had a feeling non-American gaffers would whine about something.

Don't paint all non-American gaffers with dat brush.

I set my alarm for 4am and cried manly tears when she landed. No whining here.

[vaelic]

im tired today, but well worth it!

[Ramma2]

Great night last night.

Also had an opportunity to prune some bad apples from the Facebook friends list this morning. A few people decided it was a good time to display their ignorance and made me realize they're probably not people I would associate with.

[bionic77]

I did not stay up to watch this live but the first thing I did when I got up was go to Google News to see if they pulled it off. Put a smile on my face when I saw that they did.

[onemic]

What exactly makes this mars landing so significant compared to the other ones?

[CrankyJay]

What exactly makes this mars landing so significant compared to the other ones?

Much bigger rover this time around.

[Charmicarmicat]

Don't paint all non-American gaffers with dat brush. I set my alarm for 4am and cried manly tears when she landed. No whining here.

Agreed. Im from the UK and couldn't be more proud of humanity in general. There are no borders from space :D

[danwarb]

What exactly makes this mars landing so significant compared to the other ones?

A different and interesting site. It will last for ages and be able to cover a lot of ground, and there's lots of fancy equipment onboard.

[oneils]

Stayed up last night to watch this. Was awesome! Go NASA!!

Seriously, it was amazing to watch. I'm glad I was a witness to this (and glad today is a civic holiday here in Ontario so I did not have to go to work this morning).

[newjeruse]

From the NY Times article:

Charles Elachi, director of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, which operates Curiosity and many of the other planetary missions, said it was well worth the money and compared the night’s exhilaration to an adventure movie. “This movie cost you less than seven bucks per American citizen, and look at the excitement we got,” Dr. Elachi said.

I feel like this is the wrong tact for NASA to take if they're looking to garner excitement towards the space program. In this hyper-politicized world they're operating in, tons of people will earnestly respond, "My $7.00 is not worth a moment of excitement for you." Sad but true.

[DeathNote]

What exactly makes this mars landing so significant compared to the other ones?

Mars Science Laboratory will serve as an entrée to the next decade of Mars exploration. It represents a huge step in Mars surface science and exploration capability because it will: -demonstrate the ability to land a very large, heavy rover to the surface of Mars (which could be used for a future Mars Sample Return mission that would collect rocks and soils and send them back to Earth for laboratory analysis) -demonstrate the ability to land more precisely in a 20-kilometer (12.4-mile) landing circle -demonstrate long-range mobility on the surface of the red planet (5-20 kilometers or about 3 to 12 miles) for the collection of more diverse samples and studies.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/images/EDL-full.jpg

[bionic77]

A different and interesting site. It will last for ages and be able to cover a lot of ground, and there's lots of fancy equipment onboard.

Not to mention the insane degree of difficulty in landing this thing.

If you want to know why people are so amazed that they were able to pull it off go watch 7 minutes of terror on YouTube.

[kms_md]

Enough about national pride and color pictures - where is my Lego model ?!?!?

[Tom_Cody]

What exactly makes this mars landing so significant compared to the other ones?

I guess your question has already been answered but I want to keep posting stuff.

[Omegasquash]

Great night last night. Also had an opportunity to prune some bad apples from the Facebook friends list this morning. A few people decided it was a good time to display their ignorance and made me realize they're probably not people I would associate with.

I have yet to find one person on my friend list that isn't down with Curiosity, though I do think that if there were a person to get all "lol waste of money" they'd quickly be chastised. In as humiliating a manner as possible.

[Tom_Cody]

Not to mention the insane degree of difficulty in landing this thing. If you want to know why people are so amazed that they were able to pull it off go watch 7 minutes of terror on YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISmWAyQxqqs

Awesome stuff

[danwarb]

From the NY Times article: I feel like this is the wrong tact for NASA to take if they're looking to garner excitement towards the space program. In this hyper-politicized world they're operating in, tons of people will earnestly respond, "My $7.00 is not worth a moment of excitement for you." Sad but true.

Yep, and it's not like everyone pays the same in taxes.

[andylsun]

Press conference in about 50 minutes, to recap the landing and then another in about 4 hours 50 minutes.

For whoever was asking what OS was used on the main displays, it looks like Sun Solaris 10. The Mars Image Viewer app looks like it was using the Motif toolkit under X11.

There was a monitor on one of the desks in the control room showing the Solaris 10 login screen. I suspect they use Sunrays

[Insane Metal]

Wow, it really worked. Of course I expected that, since it's NASA we're talking about. Still, this was a really really difficult mission, full of risks and many new approaches. It's just incredible what these guys can accomplish.

Now let's wait and see what Curiosity can reveal to us in the next few years!

[DopeyFish]

What exactly makes this mars landing so significant compared to the other ones?

Much larger and heavier rover

A very different landing method.... A very risky one.

this rover also has so many tools on board as opposed to the other rovers

[Bowdz]

New Horizon should be arriving at Pluto in 2015. Other than that, I don't think there are any others.

Let's not forget Dawn, which will depart the orbit of Vesta on the 26th of this month and than reach Ceres in February of 2015 making in the first craft to visit a dwarf planet (beating out New Horizons by 5 months).

Also, thanks to JPL's flawless execution of Curiosity, there is a good chance that NASA will choose the Titan Mare Explorer for the next Discovery program to fund which would attempt to be the first craft to land in and explore an alien ocean.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Mare_Explorer