Touchdown: Mars rover Curiosity lands successfully

[dyn]

Touchdown: Mars rover Curiosity lands successfully

Robotic rover Curiosity has successfully landed in Mars’ Gale Crater. The goal of the $2.5 billion mission is to find evidence that the Red Planet was once capable of supporting life.

After touchdown, the Curiosity rover sent home telemetry signal and black-and-white pictures from the surface of Mars.

The first images sent by the Curiosity, though clouded by dust kicked up during the landing, clearly showed the shadow cast by the rover, with its wheels firmly on the ground.

"We're on Mars again," NASA chief Charles Bolden said at a post-landing media conference. "It's just absolutely incredible. It doesn't get any better than this."

http://www.rt.com/news/curiosity-mars-rover-landing-934/

MSL @ NASA: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/
Images: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/images/
Raw images etc.: http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/

[SD]

Yeah I was reading about this earlier - great stuff!

[Apocalypse]

I have been following to

[DEAN SINSTROM]

It always surprises me how little interest (relatively speaking) people have in any of the Mars rovers. I mean, we've driving friggin' spaceships on the surface of another planet. That's the stuff that movies are written about.
Very cool.

[dyn]

Yes, i find both fascinating, almost live photos from another planet, and general ignorance and stupidity from people. Perhaps it is time for Operation Golgafrincham!

Golgafrincham is a red semi-desert planet that is home of the Great Circling Poets of Arium and a species of particularly inspiring lichen. Its people decided it was time to rid themselves of an entire useless third of their population, and so the descendants of the Circling Poets concocted a story that their planet would shortly be destroyed in a great catastrophe. (It was apparently under threat from a "mutant star goat"). The useless third of the population (consisting of hairdressers, tired TV producers*, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, management consultants, telephone sanitisers and the like) were packed into the B-Ark, one of three purported giant Ark spaceships, and told that everyone else would follow shortly in the other two. The other two thirds of the population, of course, did not follow [...]

Read more from Hitchhiker's Guide wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Places_in_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#Golgafrincham

[craij]

Re: HHG... possibly the greatest piece of literature ... ever!

It always surprises me how little interest (relatively speaking) people have in any of the Mars rovers. I mean, we've driving friggin' spaceships on the surface of another planet. That's the stuff that movies are written about.
Very cool.

DS, what's the big deal? I can control ships, cars, planes, boats, zombies, aliens, alien hunters, bugs, cells ... with my joystick, keyboard, mouse, wheel, ball, eyes ... whenever I feel like it!