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News & ArtsSunday, August 5, 2012
Science In About an Hour, NASA Will Attempt to Land a Car-Sized robot on Mars
Posted by Jonathan Golob on Sun, Aug 5, 2012 at 9:48 PM
.... with a rocket powered sky crane!
Nothing quite like this has ever been attempted. This is why it's awesome to be an American.
Touchdown (if things go well) should be at 10:31 Pacific Time tonight (Aug 5th). And you can watch live coverage.
1
For those with slow internet, the player embedded in the link below lets you pick a lower video resolution (480, 360, 240 px):
http://www.upi.com/blog/2012/08/05/Watch…
(So does the player at the "Watch on UStream" link on the page Jonathan gave.)
http://www.upi.com/blog/2012/08/05/Watch…
(So does the player at the "Watch on UStream" link on the page Jonathan gave.)
3
It would be cooler to be an American if we sent two cars to Mars, and then had them drag race each other all the way down Olympus Mons
4
@3
Only if the cars are designed by a Chinese-born engineer and driven by a teenage African American girl.
Only if the cars are designed by a Chinese-born engineer and driven by a teenage African American girl.
12
It's amazing the things that people think up and then make into reality. I mean a sky crane?! How do we not have jet packs and flying cars?
13
The control room scientists bursting into tears of joy is one of the most wonderful things I've ever seen.
15
It's a great day as a human, if you'll allow us a little of the reflected glory (we don't mind you paying the bills tho).
18
So much fun to see the unbridled joy in that room.
That was an amazingly short entry and deceleration. Astounding that the parachute deploys at supersonic speed. The atmosphere is very thin, but still, it felt like that was a key make-or-break point; imagine the chute just shredding.
I'm thinking back to playing the LEM game (BASIC program) on our high-school teletype circa 1976, linked to the local university's mainframe computer a few miles away. You had to type a number in for fuel usage on the retrorockets and then wait to see the results in decreased speed and altitude before typing in a new number. Sometimes the fuel ran out and you augered in; sometimes you'd open the throttle too much and the damn thing would start to go up again.
That was an amazingly short entry and deceleration. Astounding that the parachute deploys at supersonic speed. The atmosphere is very thin, but still, it felt like that was a key make-or-break point; imagine the chute just shredding.
I'm thinking back to playing the LEM game (BASIC program) on our high-school teletype circa 1976, linked to the local university's mainframe computer a few miles away. You had to type a number in for fuel usage on the retrorockets and then wait to see the results in decreased speed and altitude before typing in a new number. Sometimes the fuel ran out and you augered in; sometimes you'd open the throttle too much and the damn thing would start to go up again.
22
Meh. This would be small potatoes in a Gingrich presidency. By his fourth term, we would have direct flights from SEATAC to Mars.
29
Cost per American for the Curiosity mission: $7.
Cost per American for the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and their consequences: $10,000.
Cost per American for the Iraq/Afghanistan wars and their consequences: $10,000.
31
Elzhi: with an uncooperative Republican house najority unwilling to properly fund NASA's budget, yes. This is the space program we get.
Please re-read the comment above comparing the taxpayer cost s between this mission and just ONE of the useless wars recklessly started by the republicans. We'll wait.
Done now? Good. Now go fuck yourself, thanks.
Please re-read the comment above comparing the taxpayer cost s between this mission and just ONE of the useless wars recklessly started by the republicans. We'll wait.
Done now? Good. Now go fuck yourself, thanks.
32
"Big government did this."
No problem with that, it's what the government is good at. Teaching gangbangers and baby mamas to use condoms? Not so good at.
No problem with that, it's what the government is good at. Teaching gangbangers and baby mamas to use condoms? Not so good at.
34
@26, thanks for the links to read.
I remember playing lunar lander (or something similar) back in middle school during math class. Those of us lucky enough to finish assignments/tests early could hop on an old mac computer and play some games.
I remember playing lunar lander (or something similar) back in middle school during math class. Those of us lucky enough to finish assignments/tests early could hop on an old mac computer and play some games.
35
@31 for the Najority (negative America-hating Majority) win!
@34 I loved submitting multiple versions of the code with different added capabilities.
@34 I loved submitting multiple versions of the code with different added capabilities.
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