Mars Rover attempting landing tonight - BFD

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webbie

Seasoned Moderator
Nov 17, 2005
12,165
Western Mass.
This is a really BFD.....many years and mucho dinaro in the making.

This is a full-size rover with the capability of telling us whether and when there was life on Mars.

Then again, something could go wrong. But, if it succeeds, it will be one of the finest hours of mankind.
 
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Some kind of televised coverage?

More likely YouTube?
 
mmmm...yeah......I honestly and truly dont give a rat's a$$ wherethere there was, is, or can be, life on mars....divert the funds somewhere else......ignorant, I know....!!!
 
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Interesting.. it will take 7 minutes for the thing to land itself but it takes 14 minutes for telemetry or signals to get back here. Gonna be alot of 'watching closely' at the labs tonight.
 
What time is the rover suppose to land?
 
Thanks for the reminder Web & the links Fossil. See if we can stay awake for the landing, hope all goes well for all those that have invested so much of their lives in this. Science community is pretty pumped about this up here.
 
I watched it live...what a friggin show. Once in a lifetime opportunity. 2.5 billion dollars coming down to 7 minutes of terror! What a show..congratulations NASA..job well done! It was quite the celivery system.

Andrew
 
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Brilliant timing here, it landed about 5-30 am GMT just as I got up.

Perfect for breakfast TV!

Well done NASA :)
 
The complexity of what that team has accomplished is mind-boggling. What a superb job so far!
 
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It took 79 pyrotechnic explosions to jettison, cut, blow off, etc. all the things that the lander had to get rid of. Any single one of them not going perfect would have ended in failure. Amazing. Just getting this thing on the surface was some sort of crazy stuff.

Patiently waiting for this thing to start roving.
 
I must confess . . . after reading the information on this landing ahead of time I was a bit negative in my thinking as I figured that anything traveling that far, that fast, for that long in the conditions of space (cold, debris, radiation, etc.) and relying on an experimental landing of such complexity . . . well I figured that there was a really, really good chance of this thing ending up in one tangled mass of metal and electronics on the surface of Mars.
 
China just called. They are calling our note on the rover and want the title and keys.
 
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A pic from the orbiter of the descent.

MRO-hires.jpg
 
I must confess . . . after reading the information on this landing ahead of time I was a bit negative in my thinking as I figured that anything traveling that far, that fast, for that long in the conditions of space (cold, debris, radiation, etc.) and relying on an experimental landing of such complexity . . . well I figured that there was a really, really good chance of this thing ending up in one tangled mass of metal and electronics on the surface of Mars.

That was what I was worried about. It is so complex, so many tiny things could have gone wrong.
Mars is a graveyard for many a previous attempt to land and uncover it's secrets.
Question is, how many questions will be answered, and how many new questions will arise..........

Such is the nature of Curiosity..........;)
 
It took 79 pyrotechnic explosions to jettison, cut, blow off, etc. all the things that the lander had to get rid of. Any single one of them not going perfect would have ended in failure. Amazing. Just getting this thing on the surface was some sort of crazy stuff.

Patiently waiting for this thing to start roving.
What's even more amazing Jags is the fact that they can do all this, yet still can't get one damm thing done in Congress.....
 
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What's even more amazing Jags is the fact that they can do all this, yet still can't get one damm thing done in Congress.....

You're talking about two completely different "they"s.
 
And furthermore, my honest opinion is that it is a HUGE waste of money to even do this crap. We are spinning out of control in this country financially, and they waste this money to go to MARS? How 'bout a big WTF? They've already proven that Mars is unable to sustain human life.......the atmosphere is inhabitable.
 
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