Anyone else biting their nails?
Jeez I hope it lands Ok. I just love this stuff.
When is it due to land?
Aye... Lots riding on this one. Just finishing reading Roving Mars, highly recommended if you've not read it...
Very much so, is it just me or could they have found a less "spectecular" way to try and land it. Will be very impressed if they pull it off.
1:30am eastern US time, so I think aroun 8:30 on Monday.
IS it actually made by Rover?
The flying bead stead is a surprising solution but it allows the rover to sight the landing without clouds if dust
I will be impressed if the land it and hope they do.
Im thinking of getting the telescope out just to look at Mars tomorrow early morning. Not that you can see the landing sight, but more to see Mars for real and know its atempting the landing.
That makes it all seem more realistic.
Ive got a 12 inch Dobsonian, so if there are no clouds the view should be pretty good. Jupiter is up as well early morning, thats always worth looking at.
The whole plan is utterly, totally barking ************* mad! But I love it, and if it comes off, I'll be cheering them for managing it.
I'm really stoked about it! The head engineer on the landing system reckons it's the best way, and I guess he should know- but it does seem like an awful lot to go wrong.
You can follow it on Twitter: @MarsCuriosity
I suppose you've got to compare it with previous missions- Spirit and Opportunity had relatively simple landing processes but without much control- they really didn't know where they'd end up and it was possible that they'd land somewhere crap, or bounce into a cliff face. It worked out well but it was a bit risk, this way they're adding complexity but reducing other risks.
What tires for Mars?
Due to land around 05.31 GMT, so around 06.31 BST. I guess we won't actually know if all's gone well till around 18min later, think that's the delay in radio comms frm mars.
Waits for someone to put me right, to the second 🙂
'come on sky crane'
- iirc looking for water in a big sandbowl(?)
Feed from NASA tv is available through xbox live if u have access to it
cynic-al - Member
IS it actually made by Rover?
It can't be, it wouldn't have got there. Would have broken down a long time ago.
You can follow it on Twitter: @MarsCuriosity
Awesome, thanks.
Feed from NASA tv is available through xbox live if u have access to it
And, awesome, thanks.
I can imagine the meeting where some American pr type states,
"right, I have worked out how we are going to secure funding for the next 10 years, what we need is a supersonic parachute! now gout there and design me a mission that uses a supersonic parachute"
I can imagine the meeting where some American pr type states,"right, I have worked out how we are going to secure funding for the next 10 years, what we need is a supersonic parachute! now gout there and design me a mission that uses a supersonic parachute"
And bloody impressive it is, too! The 'chute, that is.
So whats the deal with the Nuclear Battery? Is it a mini-power station or something a bit simpler?
It all started as a joke. Some mid-level administrators at NASA had the thankless job of working on annual budgets, year after year. After compiling thousands of pages of documents for the budget every year, they wondered if anyone even bothered to read any of it. So they hatched a plan to find out. "We'll ask for billions of dollars to put a radio controlled car on Mars..."
What else will it be carrying - that the states won't tell us about?
They're repatriating illegal immigrate martians.
What else will it be carrying - that the states won't tell us about?
Tin foil hats. For the little green men.
As above, seems a complicated way to land, but they must know what they're doing.
I have visions of it landing, then the wire cutters not working, and the crane flying off taking the lander with it, or a good landing, followed by the crane's engines failings and crashing on top of the landing.
Hope it goes well, shame we'll never see video of the landing, it will be amazing.
Ive got a 12 inch Dobsonian
hahahahahahahahahahahaha fnarr fnarr etc
Spooky the battery will be [url= http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioisotope_thermoelectric_generator ]Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator[/url] - a warm bit of 'radio active metal' with a 'big bunch' of thermocouple turning the heat into electricity. Similar to the ones they stuck in Voyager that's been 'working' since 1977 - all be it very faintly now.
You're all too busy joining in the celebrations, clearly 😉
Audacious, awesome stuff 🙂
Yes watched the live stream, awesome!
Howard Wallowitz - unsung hero.
Seems to have worked according to NASA on their radio statement.
Looks like they knew what they were doing with he flying bedstead after all.
Pretty awesome.
That was a bunch of very happy geeks 😆
Quite an amazing thing to do, just over a hundred years ago the Wright Brothers flew the first powered plane and now we can land stuff on another planet and drive it around, astounding.
We can do this yet still people die of hunger etc, humans are a strange breed and no mistake.
Well chapeau to them, I though it was going to end up as a mass of scattered metal over the surface 🙂
I got up early to watch it live - it was really good.
I actually found it more nerve wracking and tense than the olympics and more rewarding when they pulled it off.
Bloody brilliant.
Only let down was the cloud cover - I did want to look at Mars through my telescope.
Incredible, I really wasn´t convinced it would work.
So, what tyres for minus 80º and dust storms...
That was more tense than the 100m final - fantastic that they got it down intact
Wooo
Hooo
Most excellent achievement.
You'll be suprised to read this, but a positive post from me! I'm pleased that Curiosity is down and safe, something of that small child who watched the Apollo programme still shines through.
this is amazing, boggles my tiny mind to think that this is a completely different world:
[img] 
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The computer on board is considerably less powerful than my phone
Mars Curiosity rover on-board computer specifications: 200MHz CPU, 256MB RAM, 2GB SSD drive. Runs VxWorks as operating system.
We can do this yet still people die of hunger etc
Feeding the world is much much harder than this!
The computer on board is considerably less powerful than my phone
That's cos it doesn't need to run Aero or play multimedia websites 🙂
What is that on the horizon ? 😯
"No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of space as sources of human danger, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of life upon them as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment"
I hope that we do find some sort of life, or evidence that life once existed there.
Is there anywhere I can watch this now,? I've searched and can't find a thing.
[img] 
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[url= http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/08/instruments-mars-rover/ ]Pretty good summary of the instruments from Wired[/url]
Here perhaps?
MARDI, DAN and RAD 😆
If they upload the vids to vimeo they'll get better HD quality than that ^^
;o)
It is staggering they sent that about of scientific equipment to another planet!
Here perhaps?
Nope
Interesting that this rocket powered steady descent from space thing hasn't even been done on earth, has it?
I think that is because of the earth's higher gravity and the amount of fuel it would take to decelerate a manned vehicle.
allthepies - MemberWhat is that on the horizon ?
Looks like the outside wall of the film studio. 🙂
Excellent! I was erring towards thinking it'd just crash and burn, very pleased to be proved wrong.
I watched a bit of the Q and A this morning . . . it was like non of them new anything about anything . .
What if it gets a flat tyre?
And that suspension is straight off an Orange 5 no?
This could be the best "what tyres for...?" thread eva.
The computer on board is considerably less powerful than my phoneMars Curiosity rover on-board computer specifications: 200MHz CPU, 256MB RAM, 2GB SSD drive. Runs VxWorks as operating system.
But does it do Flash?
I find this considerably more impressive than a man running ever so slightly faster than another man.
Maybe McDonalds should sponsor the next mission. 😀
Hear hear! Though I suspect if Maccy D sponsored the next mission excess launch weight may be a problem...
Don't get me wrong. I like the Olympics, but it is a sad statement that we, as a society, are more interested in [i]"man throw spear good"[/i] than [i]"many people build incredible vehicle, fly it millions of miles to another planet, land it safely, then get it to send back pictures!"[/i]
need a better camera - someone turned the colour setting off
.... 😆"man throw spear good"
need a better camera - someone turned the colour setting off
I think they used Instagram to appeal to the hipster crowd.
But so true. In the age of nuclear weapons and drones people are still still chucking javelins and discuses. Has no one told them that they've been eclipsed by technology?
I find this considerably more impressive than a man running ever so slightly faster than another man.Maybe McDonalds should sponsor the next mission.
I find it a shame that space exploration lacks funding. It's pretty amazing the stuff we've done so far, and to explore is a basic human instinct - it's the reason we've come as far as we have.
But McDonald's on Mars. I'm not sure where that sits on my moral compass 😕 Kids will be looking out at the skies at night, with their telescopes, confronted by big yellow Ms everywhere.
molgrips - MemberInteresting that this rocket powered steady descent from space thing hasn't even been done on earth, has it?
Even assuming the differences in gravity and atmosphere didn't scupper it, it'd be a daft way to land an object on earth... We've got runways to land on and seas to splash in, cities to crash into if you screw up... And also the requirement when we land stuff on Earth is just to get it down safe, we don't routinely send space probes to explore Camden Town or whatever. Though, perhaps we should.
Current live broadcast on NASA TV is going splendidly. How do these guys put a man on the moon when they can't even put a man on the telly? 
It still amazes me that them there scientist types can build something and fire it at a planet "one million" miles away and hit it..or rather land something on it, in the place they wanted it to land and yet some women can't park a car between two lines*.
How on “earth” do they work out the trajectory??
“is thinking it’s all magic and dragons and potions”
*there was going to be some caveat here but there isn't, cos it's true.
How on “earth” do they work out the trajectory??
It's not that hard! One of the very easiest things on the whole mission actually, Newton could probably have done it 400 years ago.
Figuring out how to hover the landing craft is far more difficult I think. Not to mention modelling the martian atmosphere...
One of the very easiest things on the whole mission actually,
Yeah, it's not rocket science.
Oh.
You could find out for yourself, of course.
http://kerbalspaceprogram.com/
Design your own rocket and send it to the, er, Mun.
It's not that hard! One of the very easiest things on the whole mission actually, Newton could probably have done it 400 years ago.
Getting a probe to Enceladus, on the other hand...
Yeah, it's not rocket science
No it's not, it's just calculus.
No it's not, it's just calculus.
Artistic licence, hush.
(-:
molgrips - MemberNewton could probably have done it 400 years ago.
Yep. What a slacker.
love the twitter feed...
[i]Guided entry is begun. Here I go![/i]
[i]Entering Mars' atmosphere. 7. Minutes. Of. Terror. Starts. NOW. [/i]
[i]Parachute deployed! Velocity 900 mph. Altitude 7 miles. 4 minutes to Mars![/i]
[i]Backshell separation. It's just you & me now, descent stage. Engage all retrorockets! [/i]
Newton..? The fella from Brighton that plays an acoustic?
Neat..
Though is he 400years ols?? Looks well on it.
That twitter feed is funny..