Langdon_777:

Did you just use every character on your keyboard typing that drivel?

It has a rock smashing laser!!!!1!!!111!!!!!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2184264/NASA-rover-Cur i osity-lands-Mars.html

Stupid failydail link copy
Link

I went to see the landing on one of the big screens in Times Square and just got back a little while ago.

The very best part for me was the crowd chanting "NASA! NASA!" and "SCIENCE!"


/manly tears

dbirchall: balisane: I went to see the landing on one of the big screens in Times Square and just got back a little while ago.

The very best part for me was the crowd chanting "NASA! NASA!" and "SCIENCE!"


/manly tears

Pix?

Alas, none; my phone shorted out a few weeks ago and I haven't been able to get a new one. Really regretted it tonight.

There were a couple of pro cameramen there, though, so I'm sure there'll be footage. I'm in the back by the double lightpoles with the orange sign. :D

Pagination?

What happened? Did NASA make every other space program look like a piece of shiat again?

Morning folks....I wanted to post here and say that even after being here almost 20 years, I'm just proud, gobsmacked and a little bleary eyed this morning after watching us do something that is almost as important as landing someone on the Moon. The discussion here already is that we can:
1. We can now with the skycrane technology proven, land on any planet or moon that has enough atmoslhere and a solid landing surface....
2. People are already talking about building a lander/rover/sample probe that also has an ascent capability to go to Mars, land collect samples and then launch itself and then return to Earth.

Marine1: What happened? Did NASA make every other space program look like a piece of shiat again?

TOTALLY!!!

I just HAVE to post this so you all can suck it!!!

dbirchall: balisane: I went to see the landing on one of the big screens in Times Square and just got back a little while ago.

The very best part for me was the crowd chanting "NASA! NASA!" and "SCIENCE!"


/manly tears

Pix?

Thanks dude ( dbirchall ) for the TF....

Oh and disclaimer...I'm not part of the MSL or JPL team, I'm a Hubble Space Telescope and Astrophysics nerd at Goddard outside of Wash DC but this makes us all family when we (as an agency) succeed as a team.

I hope I provide the occasional chuckle to you guys!!

/

So anyway, is that Sharp Mountain just visible at the right edge of that picture, or part of the crater rim?

Dead for Tax Reasons: Couldn't they have scheduled the landing better for optimal prime time viewing? Damn scientists have no sense for marketing

The N in NASA stands for NBC...

I'm sorry, but this has just left me feeling non-plussed. It's a great achievement and all but it's not like we haven't put robots on Mars before. Curiosity is the size and mass of a Toyota RAV, which beats the hell out of the previous Tonka Toy probes. And it has an atomic reactor for power instead of having to rely on solar energy generation. But I still don't see this as a big deal.

We were told we'd have manned missions to Mars in the early 2020s and now that projection has been pushed back 10 years. These guys at NASA really don't know WTF they're doing, it's all a gamble.

Pfft, I'm just pissed off we don't have our flying cars already.

Langdon_777: Degenz: Langdon_777:

Did you just use every character on your keyboard typing that drivel?

I was feeling expansive and inclusive so yes maybe I did :p

LOL

Degenz: We were told we'd have manned missions to Mars in the early 2020s and now that projection has been pushed back 10 years. These guys at NASA really don't know WTF they're doing, it's all a gamble.

Pfft, I'm just pissed off we don't have our flying cars already.

This is much more heavily contingent on science funding than it is technological capability. One of the primary reasons we're not planning for a Mars mission in the near future is because we no longer have a heavy-lift ability beyond low earth orbit.

Curiosity actually has weather sensors and radiation detectors to collect data in preparation for some future manned mission.

Degenz: We were told we'd have manned missions to Mars in the early 2020s and now that projection has been pushed back 10 years. These guys at NASA really don't know WTF they're doing, it's all a gamble.

Hell, now that we have experience with the skycrane landing system it seems like we've paved the way for landing really significantly heavy payloads on Mars, the only issue is getting them off of earth. Perhaps we'll have enough payload capacity to land a LEM-like module?

Curiosity landed, then immediately pulled out a handgun and an AR-15 and began opening fire on the Martians...

Just for giggles...no one is still posting but just in case...

Fubini: Degenz: We were told we'd have manned missions to Mars in the early 2020s and now that projection has been pushed back 10 years. These guys at NASA really don't know WTF they're doing, it's all a gamble.

Pfft, I'm just pissed off we don't have our flying cars already.

This is much more heavily contingent on science funding than it is technological capability. One of the primary reasons we're not planning for a Mars mission in the near future is because we no longer have a heavy-lift ability beyond low earth orbit.

Curiosity actually has weather sensors and radiation detectors to collect data in preparation for some future manned mission.

Fubini: Degenz: We were told we'd have manned missions to Mars in the early 2020s and now that projection has been pushed back 10 years. These guys at NASA really don't know WTF they're doing, it's all a gamble.

Hell, now that we have experience with the skycrane landing system it seems like we've paved the way for landing really significantly heavy payloads on Mars, the only issue is getting them off of earth. Perhaps we'll have enough payload capacity to land a LEM-like module?

We do have heavy-load capacity, that's how we projected Curiosity out of Earth orbit and sent it to Mars. NASA is using the exact same engine design as the Saturn V rockets that took Neil Armstrong and his buddies to the Moon back in the 60s.

And that's really my whole point; we've reached the limit of our tech abilities. Those launches we see from KSC are awesome, but they are immensely expensive...and dangerous. The energy packed in to those rockets is equivalent to a small nuclear warhead. Which is really cool but what exactly is the benefit?

Fubini: Degenz: We were told we'd have manned missions to Mars in the early 2020s and now that projection has been pushed back 10 years. These guys at NASA really don't know WTF they're doing, it's all a gamble.

Hell, now that we have experience with the skycrane landing system it seems like we've paved the way for landing really significantly heavy payloads on Mars, the only issue is getting them off of earth. Perhaps we'll have enough payload capacity to land a LEM-like module?

Exactly! But we already have the capacity. The challenge lies in getting humans alive there while traveling vast distances and surviving on a planet with no atmosphere. Mars isn't the Moon, it's orbiting the Sun on its own schedule and that puts it so far away from us it can take years to get a launch window.

And then you have the radio signal delay factor. Mars is so far away it can take 10 - 30 mins for a probe to transmit a message to us...and the same time for us to send it back. It's like using AOL, only everything happens in 1 hour increments.

LiberalConservative: It has a rock smashing laser!!!!1!!!111!!!!!!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2184264/NASA-rover-Cur i osity-lands-Mars.html

Plutonium powered rock smashing laser!

ElLoco: [i45.tinypic.com image 538x600] [scientist/Carson Beckett]
[i49.tinypic.com image 667x500]

Glad I wasn't the only one. Also, I saw what looked like a young Joe Strummer, and Felicia Day.

miss diminutive: Max Awesome: So this new giant rover is going to pick up and rescue the cute little rovers, right?

...guys?

[i1-news.softpedia-static.com image 792x400]

I think it would only have enough room to carry one of them.....which could lead to some tough decisions. Who gets rescued, Spirit or Opportunity?

Pick up the little one, tow the middle one. No one gets left behind. Our boys. OUR BOYS.

Degenz: I'm sorry, but this has just left me feeling non-plussed. It's a great achievement and all but it's not like we haven't put robots on Mars before. Curiosity is the size and mass of a Toyota RAV, which beats the hell out of the previous Tonka Toy probes. And it has an atomic reactor for power instead of having to rely on solar energy generation. But I still don't see this as a big deal.

We were told we'd have manned missions to Mars in the early 2020s and now that projection has been pushed back 10 years. These guys at NASA really don't know WTF they're doing, it's all a gamble.

Pfft, I'm just pissed off we don't have our flying cars already.

Read Heinlein's testimony to Congress (think it was them) from the late 70s-early 80s if you have to ask 'why do we do this, wat teh point?'.

To sum it up: we do this because its hard to do, and gives us direct benefits from advancing technology. We'd be on Mars (with flying cars, even) if we did not piss away Billions and Billions of dollars every year for weapons of war. Its as simple as that.

Take all the money spent on defense from the end of Apollo to now, siphon off 20%, give that to NASA. The benefits would be astounding. We get a 5-1 payback on money spent to go to space, no matter what we do: send men, machines, or furries.

We have no other choice but to do this, to sit here on the Homeworld is to wait to be pulverized by an errant comet or asteroid. It is only a matter of time.