New Mars Rover Landing

[morvelaira]

http://www.ustream.tv/nasa

Livestreaming now, for the science geeks :)

[bmanfoley]

Been watching for about 20 minutes. It's very interesting!

EDIT: Curiosity has landed! Woo!

[morvelaira]

Yep, Curiosity is on the ground on Mars, and everyone is celebrating. To highlight the point of this, I share the following conversation:

Guy 1: So what? We've had an RC car up there driving around for years now.
Guy 2: Yeah, but now we have a fully mobile organic chemistry lab. :P

[TheGuy]

They also have a really cool java based simulation of the landing with all the different stages at http://eyes.nasa.gov/

[warmist]

Wooo! For science!

[FlowerChild]

Just watched. Very cool, and thanks for the link :)

[Ferrus.Manus]

Guy 1: So what? We've had an RC car up there driving around for years now.
Guy 2: Yeah, but now we have a fully mobile organic chemistry lab. :P

Also Curiosity has fuel for 15+ years of continued operation.

Also I was watching a steam at the same time as watching computer simulation from http://eyes.nasa.gov/exit.html , go there and choose preview to actually see the simulation of landing, it blows my mind that they actually used a rocket powered sky-crane at the last stage.

EDIT: Dang ninjas.

[Battlecat]

Watched it live, it was very exciting to watch. I'm so glad this one made it down, the complexity of the landing sequence was incredibly audacious.

This thing is huge by rover standards, apparently it's about 3 meters long.

[morvelaira]

Yeah, that was actually the first live test of this kind of landing proceedure. It performed beautifully, and could work very well when we send people that way.

[Urian]

Bleh, just woke up so I missed it. And as I remember reading: funny that nasa sends the landing on Mars with less delay than NBC sending the olympics from London :p

[warmist]

As a (crappy) computer programmer - can't imagine anything working on the first try, it looks like magic. Also the crane was amazing.

[morvelaira]

Mohawk guy. Already a meme. Still has to be the best hair I've ever seen at NASA :)

[TheAnarchitect]

NASA gave my daughter an awesome birthday present.

[warmist]

Thought this would be relevant:

Spoiler

Show

Edit: spoilered for size.

[DaDodsworth]

I slept through my alarm to watch it, extremely annoyed.

[DaveYanakov]

Mohawk guy. Already a meme. Still has to be the best hair I've ever seen at NASA :)

Spoiler

Show

Is it me or did he shave a strip out of the middle to accommodate his headset, thereby multiplying the win exponentially?

Also, those of you who 'don't understand the hype about sports' have no excuse after today.

[Mason11987]

Also, those of you who 'don't understand the hype about sports' have no excuse after today.

What does this have to do with sports?

[morvelaira]

It definitely had the feeling of the last crucial minutes of a major sporting event.

[TheAnarchitect]

No, I still don't get the hype about sports. Oh, I get the idea of hype, but see, sports sucks and this is actually cool.

[Rianaru]

No, I still don't get the hype about sports. Oh, I get the idea of hype, but see, sports sucks and this is actually cool.

Truth

[Rianaru]

Also, for anyone who hasn't heard, give this site a gander: http://mars-one.com/

[dawnraider]

No, I still don't get the hype about sports. Oh, I get the idea of hype, but see, sports sucks and this is actually cool.

+1

Also, the landing was awesome. Was pretty nervous to see if it landed (my inner aeronautical engineer was very hyped). Glad it made it down safely.

[TheAnarchitect]

Also, for anyone who hasn't heard, give this site a gander: http://mars-one.com/

This tugs at my heartstrings: I want it to be real so bad. But It's extremely ambitious, and I'm gonna have to see it happen before I believe. And even then, My wife has already told me I can't go.

[Rianaru]

Also, for anyone who hasn't heard, give this site a gander: http://mars-one.com/

This tugs at my heartstrings: I want it to be real so bad. But It's extremely ambitious, and I'm gonna have to see it happen before I believe. And even then, My wife has already told me I can't go.

The thing is that they're doing it very intelligently. They're getting reduced price contracts because they're ordering things like rocket launches in relatively massive bulk from companies who normally get very little business(private space travel isn't huge yet), and they're getting investors by proposing to make it an even bigger media sensation then the Apollo landing. And it would be a recurring tv show. So not only are they planning to be successful, they're planning on shown us the whole damn thing with completely unadulterated content, AND they're planning to get rich off of it and it looks like it's going to work!
And I'm sorry TheAnarchitect, but I don't think they need architects up there quite yet :P...

[TheAnarchitect]

The hell they don't.