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NASA's 1-ton Curiosity rover is set to land
Precusor
Member UncommonPosts: 3,589
Just a reminder that the one-ton nuke powered rover "Curiosity" is set to land on the red planet today. 
PASADENA, Calif. — After 8 1/2 months crossing the millions of miles between planets, the biggest and most complex rover ever sent to another world is now on its final approach for a hair-raising touchdown on Mars.
NASA's 1-ton Curiosity rover is set to land inside the Red Planet's Gale Crater at 10:31 p.m. PDT tonight (Aug. 5; 1:31 a.m. EDT and 0531 GMT on Aug. 6). As with any planetary landing, success is not a given, and tensions may be especially high tonight given Curiosity's elaborate,
Read the rest:
http://www.space.com/16917-mars-rover-curiosity-lands-today.html
Comments
Nasa live feed for anyone who is interested
http://news.cnet.com/8301-11386_3-57486458-76/watch-nasas-live-coverage-of-mars-rover-landing/
LOL. same here
TOUCHDOWN SUCCESSFULL.
YEAH!!!!
The head NASA guy just said there will be a manned mission to mars by 2030
By who? If NASA? Yeah right... From policy changes every four years to NASA being on the butchers block every other year -budget cuts-. Only way I see NASA doing it is if the U.S. gets into another space race. Though there is another country which seems to have strong interrest in space as of late. They might.
Private companies by that date? No way. The whole space tourism thing that Virgin Galatic has been working on has been at full swing for almost 10 years now. It's still not out of testing phases. That's to just send people up for a few minutes.
As much as I want to believe it. It just doesn't seem plausable for NASA to make that date. They would have to start sending up manned vehicles and testing them fairly soon-ish.
Edited to add: Are they still planning on using the moon as a forward base for these missions? Eighteen years to go. tick-tock. Didn't watch the feed. Kind of wish I did now. Not sure if you were mocking his statement or not. Really doesn't matter. Seems like wishful thinking on his part.
As exciting as this is, I will not envy the astronauts who go on that mission. Imagine spending 9+ months in a space shuttle (one way). I start to get antsy after a 12 hour road trip.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
And think of the money spent, Hay, We could use the money down here.
why are we funding such crap !
You're in danger of turning this thread political, but what could we possibly spend that money on that we're not already dropping billions of dollars on?
Someone is going to attempt a manned flight to Mars someday. Most likely Russia or China. It's still a long way off for either country. But right now, America is going backwards.
Exploration is crap? Furthering mans understanding of the universe around him is crap?
It's a very simple minded attitude.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Cant wait for some high ress color pics.
http://i.i.com.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim/2012/08/08/Curiosity_first_highres_images.jpg
Neil DeGrasse Tyson points out
First of all, let's clarify what the NASA budget is. Do you realize that the $850 billion dollar bailout, that sum of money is greater than the entire 50-year running budget of NASA?
And so when someone says, "We don't have enough money for this space probe," I'm asking, no, it's not that you don't have enough money, it's that the distribution of money that you're spending is warped in some way that you are removing the only thing that gives people something to dream about tomorrow.
You remember the 60s and 70s. You didn't have to go more than a week before there's an article in Life magazine, "The Home of Tomorrow," "The City of Tomorrow," "Transportation of Tomorrow". All of that ended in the 1970s. After we stopped going to the Moon, it all ended. We stopped dreaming.
And so I worry that the decision that Congress makes doesn't factor in the consequences of those decisions on tomorrow. Tomorrow's gone. They're playing for the quarterly report, they're playing for the next election cycle, and that is mortgaging the actual future of this nation, and the rest of the world is going to pass us by.
Watch the clip:
http://io9.com/5829707/must-listen-neil-degrasse-tysons-inspirational-rant-on-nasa-cutbacks
Another pìc