NASA's next Mars Lander

That's awesome. Thanks bells.

Bill Shatner (I call him Bill because we're just that close) makes everything better.

~String
 
some rather troubling developments seem to have transpired. the department of defense has taken over the project after a series of images captured on curiousity's cameras were relayed back to earth and viewed.

it appears curiosity is not alone :eek:
 
Gustav said:
some rather troubling developments seem to have transpired. the department of defense has taken over the project after a series of images captured on curiousity's cameras were relayed back to earth and viewed. it appears curiosity is not alone :eek:
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But that is just a distraction, not alive, which the little green men sent out to attract curiosity - they what it to come into range before shooting it.
 
This and That

Trippy said:

Stop motion video (297 frames) of the last 2.5 minutes of MSL's descent - thumbnails at this stage I'm afraid.
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There are bigger versions available at the MSL Video Archive, including the 1280x720 (38.05 MB) version. They're all in MOV format.

• • •​

Bells said:

My son's were literally awed as they watched it. The knowledge that they were watching humans landing a craft on an "alien planet", even though there are other rovers there.. They were beside themselves as they watched it.
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My daughter watched, too; at first I thought she just wanted to stay up late and hang out with Dad. You know how it goes; as we were watching it, she was relying on me to tell her when something important happened. I would hear an announcement from one of the control stations and react, and she wouldn't know why. And then the primary controller would announce it, and that's when people would react. It was weird, because when I heard the phrase, "Tango Delta is nominal," I was jumping all over the room. Em was looking at me like I'd lost it, and I realized I was the only person reacting. It was only when the primary controller acknowledged the announcement that Curiosity was on the ground that everyone started celebrating.

But yes, she was fascinated. We had NASA TV up on the Linux box and everything else on the Apple, and every new announcement had her jumping to update the Twitter feed; it wasn't just the idea of seeing it, but she was seeing it as it happened. Something about the occasion crept in. This wasn't like watching old film of the One Small Step.

On the other side, there's my father. Like most Americans, he hadn't really paid attention to the STS launches, but I was raving about Curiosity a couple weeks ago at an air show, and he and my stepmother were instantly sold. To his eye, NASA was on a marketing blitz and he happily fell into it. Watching the JPL control team washed him in moonshot nostalgia; he's been waxing poetic about geek-teaming ever since—their coordination, concentration, specialization, and emotional reactions genuinely reminded him of glory days on the football field, when his players got to hoist the trophy high. This was a championship celebration to him, and NASA has, for a time at least, rekindled his fascination with the Universe around him.

The landing was a success; this entire mission is a win for NASA so far. They've captivated the world, across generations, and perhaps it has something to do with how close we are to the EBO grail. But dreamers are awake right now in a way I haven't seen for a while.
 
Tiassa said:
The landing was a success; this entire mission is a win for NASA so far. They've captivated the world, across generations, and perhaps it has something to do with how close we are to the EBO grail. But dreamers are awake right now in a way I haven't seen for a while.
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I am rather disappointed in the lack of public awareness of this. NASA pulls off a spectacular mars landing and it gets less press than the fact that Kristen Stewart cheated on Robert Pattinson.
 
Wonderful. I hope this (actually mind-boggling) achievement inspires another generation of space scientists and engineers to keep pushing the boundary - and perhaps also keeps the money flowing in to NASA, JPL and other US institutions. My admiration for this teams achievement is profound. They just quietly got on with it, and then bang - there a little car sized rover sitting in a crater on mars...
 
Afterglow

Madanthonywayne said:

I am rather disappointed in the lack of public awareness of this. NASA pulls off a spectacular mars landing and it gets less press than the fact that Kristen Stewart cheated on Robert Pattinson.
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Indeed. But, as much as I hate to inject this potentially political implication into the mix, that's the marketplace: the value of news is not its quality or actual significance, but, rather, it's popular appeal.

I learned this time around that word of mouth is powerful, but only among those who actually care. While none in my circles give a damn about Stewart and Pattinson, anyway, the Olympics were an interesting question: What? You even care about that event? I actually have no idea what was being broadcast at that particular time in the U.S., but in the end it's a matter of what a person finds important. If the Olympics weren't on, there would plenty watching whatever the hell is on at that time on Sunday night, even if it was a rerun.

I don't understand that, but some don't understand why landing a metal box on Mars is any big deal.

And where it risks getting political is in trying to figure out if that says anything about American culture in general.

This mission literally restored my father's sense of wonder about the broader Universe. You could hear it in his voice as he recalled watching moonshots. I haven't heard that kind of metaphysical thirst in his voice ... maybe ever. And while he would never advocate nationalizing the energy markets, for instance, he certainly has lost that sense of cynicism that used to make him say NASA wasn't worth the money anymore. I think he's reclaimed a little bit of his youthful awe about the Universe, and would take a new moonshot—sure, been there, done that, but still—over a war any day.

It's astounding to see the powerful effects Curiosity has stirred among those who actually care about these sorts of things. Indeed, it's more than I expected. I mean, sure, I'm hoping this is the mission, and always hedge by acknowledging how slim that chance is, but something happened in the last few days before EDL, and NASA won a lot of hearts and minds. I had not expected that. And, now, watching the ripple effect in people's minds, I'm even more surprised. Sure I thought this was a big-deal mission, but I did not expect the seemingly profound reactions I'm seeing in people around me.

Someday we will all wander out into the streets, and gaze up not at Sputnik, but rather the glimmer of Mars or Jupiter or Saturn, filled with wonder and expectation, and even a dose of fear. It will not be Sputnik, or a space station. We will gaze out into the planets, and know we are not the only living rock in the Universe. Twenty years? Fifty? Certainly it is possible in our lifetime. But even my mother is looking up at the sky with that inscrutable expression. She had planned on watching the Olympics, but ended up watching JPL and Curiosity. And now when she looks at the sky, it really is different.

I really didn't expect that. And I wish—wishwishwish—such moments could be given as gifts to all our fellow Americans. Set aside the Hollywood stars; we already know they're an alien life form. Look at the real stars. That night of wonder and awe is coming, and it is glorious anticipation.

'Tis a far, far better reward, that special moment, than fretting over Tom Cruise or Kristin Stewart or whether or not all presidents after Dubya are expected to speak King's English.

And it wasn't the nightly news that convinced family and friends to watch mission control at CIT. It was word of mouth. I said something. A friend said something. Somebody else said something. Suddenly almost everyone I know is watching.

And the afterglow is something else.

To NASA's credit, in addition to simply pulling off that landing—we joke that on a cosmic scale the 211 miles from MRO to the capsule when that parachute picture was taken counts as a "near miss"—they've done a marvelous job of grabbing hold of the people who have been paying attention. Anthropomorphizing their droids is one of the best stunts they ever pulled. I mean, really, who weeps reading Twitter?

"Can you hear us now, Spirit?"​

And by doing so, NASA managed to create something special in a tumultuous time. I only wish more people could bask in the glow. And if they keep doing things right, NASA will draw more people, and they will, before it is all over, do the job.

Human beings, welcome to the Universe. You've been here a while, actually, and it's time to get to know the place. Oh, and by the way, it's awesome out there.
 
Curiosity, I hope, has kept funds coming for non-maned space investigations, but fear the public will only be interested and willing to fund when men go up. I think manned space craft is not worth the much higher cost of doing - it will all still be up there 100 years from now. Lets learn more with our "space money" with instruments only for a 100 years or so.
 
It's not a bigger deal because most Americans don't know the difference between this rover and the previous two rovers--which were very much huge cultural hits. The perception is "Oh, they sent up another rover...yay?"

More needs to be made about spinoff technology when the programs themselves don't have sex appeal. I still remember the piece 60 Minutes did on the LHC at CERN before they turned it on. One of the scientists there said that teleportation was one of the technologies that could potentially arise from the project. Teleportation! If that doesn't keep you on your toes, what will?
 
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