Did you stay up to see Rover Curiosity land on Mars?

[Apos]

http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/05/the...0~0~0~0~0~9~3~

[Apos]

The Case For ‘Curiosity’: Why You Should Stay Up And Watch The Mars Rover Landing

Chris Velazco

posted yesterday
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As I write this, NASA’s Curiosity rover is hurtling through space as it has been for the past eight months, but that all changes tonight. With any luck (scratch that — with a staggering amount of luck), that Mini Cooper-sized envoy will survive its tricky seven minute atmospheric entry, after which it will roam the Martian surface conducting a slew of science experiments for nearly two years.
It’s all arguably important stuff — what Curiosity finds could be instrumental to understanding the origins of the planet, not to mention that it could help pave the way for a manned mission — but I have to wonder how many people living in this age of distraction actually give a damn.

who cares if there was life on Mars? just a waste of more money—
Harry Quick (@HarryQuickk) August 04, 2012

I think NASA is a waste of money. Who cares about Mars…—
DYL∆N THE VILL∆IN (@Dylan_James99) August 02, 2012

"@woahlulu: Does anyone know what tome curiosity lands on Mars tomorrow?" Who cares—
Adan N. (@TitoTarintino) August 05, 2012

NASA, to its credit, has been doing what it can to drum up interest in the mission. There’s (curiously enough) a Twitter account for the rover, which can be seen chatting it up with Neil deGrasse Tyson and providing status updates in the first person. Oh, and the organization will be streaming the night’s events, offering up a glimpse inside the human drama of mission control.
On some level though, I can’t blame those who don’t care. NASA’s recent history with Mars has been a spotty one — after a string of successful fly-bys and probe landings in the early-to-mid 70s, NASA returned to the red planet with the Pathfinder mission in 1997 (I was in third grade at the time, and utterly, utterly enthralled by the whole thing), but such incidents seem to be the exceptions. According to Reuters, 26 out of 40 Mars missions have either gone awry or gone up in (perhaps not always metaphorical) smoke — not terribly heartening odds, especially since Curiosity’s landing is going to be one of the trickiest yet.
Failure, sad to say, is most definitely an option.
That’s to say nothing of the fact that there’s just so much stuff going on right now. The Olympics. The mess in Syria. Tropical storms. Even decidedly niche events like the Apple v. Samsung trial weigh heavily on some people’s minds. And, you know, some people are only concerned with what’s going to be on television tonight. There’s nothing wrong with that either.
There’s also a slight sexiness problem. Now, putting a man on the moon — that was something that really brought people together. If you’ll forgive me for sentimentalizing a moment I (nor many of you) weren’t a part of, that day in July 1969 pushed us all forward, if only just a little bit. Perhaps naturally, landing a car-sized robot on the surface of another planet just doesn’t seem as weighty or substantial, despite the sheer complexity of what’s involved and what it could lead to. We didn’t put our footprints on Mars. We haven’t put lives on the line. Not yet, anyway.
So, yes, there are plenty of reasons why people can’t be bothered to care about rover wheeling its way around a planet that’s roughly 35 million miles away. But if you find yourself feeling a twinge of curiosity about that relatively tiny machine born of lofty ambitions, here’s why you should care about what happens tonight.

First off, humanity is reaching out to plop (fine, another) something of its own creation onto another world. Just think about that for a minute. Louis C.K. has a great bit (that many of you have , so indulge me) about how a guy he sat next to on a plane was moaning about flaky in-flight WiFi while he was encased in a streamlined metal tube powering its way through the friggin’ sky at 600 miles per hour. The point is, there’s a tendency for people to get wrapped up in the earth-bound, and it’s always nice for a change of pace.
What’s more, with Curiosity, NASA’s not just reaching toward the heavens — it’s planning to learn as much as it can from them. You have to admit, there’s something more than a little wonderful about that. There’s untold value in what we can learn from Curiosity, though the information the rover is able to glean may not be immediately useful. What’s the point in learning about Mars’ past? To expand upon the corpus of human knowledge! To understand our crazy, hectic, beautiful universe even a fraction of a percent better.
Even so, those findings could have a practical impact on future Mars missions, both those envisioned by NASA and those in the growing commercial space movement. Will this ridiculous landing scheme work? If it does, you can bet someone will try it again some day. Of course, not every company in that field needs the coaxing. SpaceX founder Elon Musk seems to look at Mars much in the same way — it’s a goal to be met because it’s there, waiting for us to set foot on it.
“That’s always been a goal of SpaceX,” Musk recently told the L.A. Times. “We’re hoping to develop the technology to do that in probably 12 to 15 years.”
And that’s just one facet of his ambitions for mankind’s space-faring future. Musk said back in March that one of his company’s ambitions was to establish a long-term colony on the red planet. His declaration smacks of hubris — all SpaceX can do now is dock with the International Space Station — but it’s exactly that sort of thinking that helps push through the myriad roadblocks that such a project would almost definitely encounter.
In the end, Curiosity could be the harbinger of big, big things to come. On the other hand, it could crash and burn on the Martian surface, signaling the abject loss of $2.5 billion. Either way, tell me that’s not something worth caring about.




Tags: Curiosity, space

[Apos]

I found it absolutely fascinating and while not as awe-inspiring as the original lunar landing in 1969,
when I was but a child of 6 , it was riveting.

[LM]

Amazing feat...but this is Mars in 10 years....

[Count]

I didn't stay up but I find this stuff fascinating and inspiring and have been reading all the reports. Congratulations to all who brought it about.

[Apos]

http://gizmodo.com/5932207/the-compu...tle-old-ladies

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PAST PERFECT
AUG 6, 2012 2:20 PM
5,682 18SHARE
The Computer for the Apollo Program Used Rope Memory Woven by Little Old Ladies

Casey Chan

If you thought the fact that an iPhone was four times as powerful as the on-board computer of the Curiosity Rover was unbelievable, take a look at the meager tech the Apollo Program used to get into space. The computer was so pitiful that the software of the Apollo guidance computer was literally hand woven into its memory.
The overall memory of the Apollo Guidance Computer was equivalent to 72kb (in modern terms) and the software had to be woven into the core rope memory, women in factories put the software together by looping wires through a core and around a core to represent the 1's and 0's of computer programs. As you could imagine, the process was extremely slow, tedious and a nightmare to put together but still... space! These things were used to go to space! Unbelievable.

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http://gizmodo.com/5932148/the-iphon...uriosity-rover

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MARS ROVER LANDING
AUG 6, 2012 12:00 PM
24,655 179SHARE






The iPhone Is Literally Four Times as Powerful as the Curiosity Rover

Leslie Horn

Last night NASA landed on Mars. An amazing feat! But guess what? The Curiosity rover's on-board computer is a pretty low-power system. In fact, the iPhone 4S is four times more powerful. Check out the specs below.



Surprised? Don't be. NASA knows what it's doing. It has just enough to do everything it needs. And that includes 17 cameras. [@mikko]




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http://gizmodo.com/5932214/heres-exa...o-won-that-bet

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CURIOSITY
AUG 6, 2012 3:03 PM
7,179 26SHARE






Here’s Exactly Where Mars Curiosity Landed—And the NASA Engineer Who Won That Bet

Jesus Diaz

A friend at NASA has sent us this exclusive document that reveals two things for the first time. One, it shows exactly where Curiosity landed yesterday, something that hasn't been officially disclosed yet. The accuracy of the actual landing site compared to the target is impressive!*
And two, the NASA guys had a pool on where it would land, called Mars Madness 2012:

Because we're nerds and don't really know anything about basketball, our office pools look a little different around here.

The name of the guy who won is Dan Vartolomei, an Structures and Configuration Engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Congratulations, Dan. Enjoy your $15! (each of them put a buck each). And congratulations to the entire team for landing so incredibly close to target.
* This is the equivalent of shooting a bullet from the Empire State Building in New York to the Eiffel Tower in Paris and hitting the antenna right on its tip.






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[BorisDaBulletDodger]

I'm curious what would happen if they found life on Mars, from a religous point of view.

[WickedWillie]

I'm curious what would happen if they found life on Mars, from a religous point of view.

Breaking news.....photo just released by NASA

[Seville]

I'm curious what would happen if they found life on Mars, from a religous point of view.

Nothing. The believers would just rationalize whatever they needed to however they needed to. They have done that all through history when presented with facts that don't conform to what they want to believe.

[BorisDaBulletDodger]

Nothing. The believers would just rationalize whatever they needed to however they needed to. They have done that all through history when presented with facts that don't conform to what they want to believe.

I still think drowning witches is a good idea

and I am not sure if there is anything that can stop me from eating Chick-fil-a

[ezsmile]

something to think about for all the people who say it is not important.

It is currently fashionable to talk about how mankind may be destroying the planet, what with possible nuclear holocausts, polution of the seas, climate change, etc. There are arguments for and against that man is destroying his habitat.

But, it is an inescapable fact that in the far far future, when our sun becomes a red giant, the Earth will not be a habitable place. So if mankind cannot figure out how to get off of the planet, and if mankind cannot find a suitable destination if in fact we can get off of the planet, we are all hooped.

Nasa is but the first step.

[jacknback]

I saw Rover land on the coconut juice man at one of the El Centro metro stations.

OOOps....wrong Rover!!