The thread for all things Curiosity related

[Sbowyer28]

No, that's quite common...

Not in my school, I get picked on in my school...

[Vanamonde]

AND IM ONLY 13

My mom let me stay home from from kindergarten to watch men walk on the Moon.

I listened to the press conference, and I do wish they hadn't been so USA #1 about it. I am American and I'm proud, but with this kind of thing, everybody benefits and a lot of countries contributed. However, I suspect that the people involved know that better than I do, but they have to play a certain angle to keep their funding coming. By the way, it was 140kg fuel left over out of 400.

I get picked on in my school...

So did the "blue shirts," but look where they are now. Edited August 6, 2012 by Vanamonde

[Rocketscienist]

You are right!

[Audiopulse]

DAYUM!

Ive just read about Curiosity a few days ago and thougt it was a concept to come in 6 to 7 years - yesterday the newswoman just said it would be "landing at mars in a few hours". Hit me like a brick to the face. In a positive way.

[dsi1]

Awesome landing! We need a "Curiosity" part pack for KSP asap:)

I want a skycrane pack!

[mrxak]

Stayed up till 3 in the morning watching the Virtual tracker, AND IM ONLY 13, Its kida funny that I love space at this age.

This post gives me so much hope for the future. Never be ashamed of your interest in this stuff. This is important, more important than any other Earthly concerns, and your interest in it is what makes even greater achievements possible in the future.

[trbinsc]

I'm 14 and I'm still awake at 4:12 am. The newest image looked awesome. I wonder when the next downlink is. It's funny because I understand this stuff.

[olex]

14 light-minutes away from the nearest human being, completely autonomously, a goddamn rocket-powered hovering skycrane just entered atmosphere at 21000km/h, evaded crashing into its own parachute, flew to a designated landing spot with only 2km of error, and landed a ton of a rover on Mars with a touchdown speed of less than 1m/s before flying away. Damn science, you scary.

[RayneCloud]

Next Downlink in 2 hours, we'll find out about the downlinks during the press conf at Noon EDT

[trbinsc]

Had to post this

[Johno]

The landing was exactly 10 minutes after hometime at the school where I work. I put it out on FB that parents who wanted to watch the landing were welcome, and I told students and teachers they could come too; then I put the NASA TV live feed on the big screen.

Lots of them showed up; the lab was nearly full.

Better yet, my two little girls were there too.

It doesn't get better than this.

Australia did its part too - without our deep space tracking stations, NASA wouldn't have had downlink data. A small contribution, to be sure, but we were proud to make it.

The thing I love is that unlike the Cold War days (which I remember), people in Russia weren't mostly thinking "Damn, Yankees got there before us." There would have been a little wistfulness for Fobos-Grunt, which is only to be expected; but Russian space geeks were nonetheless looking at their internet terminals, and were with the rest of us muttering under their breath in their own language "slow down . . that's it, good chute. . . now, deploy the skycrane and we're . . YES![1] "

[1] And, it must be said, getting funny looks from everyone else, but that's not important.

[LaydeeDem]

So who saw this?

[trbinsc]

Who didn't?

[combat squirrel]

This is, in my opinion, the most important step in our exploration of space since the Apollo program, and our exploration of space is the most important thing we as humans can do. I am drinking champagne, and fighting back the tears. This is a night I'll remember as long as I live.

Long live Curiosity, and long live curiosity!

Totally agree, this is just such an awesome achievement - congrats to the NASA team

[trbinsc]

New picture. It looks awesome!

[flaillomanz]

14 light-minutes away from the nearest human being, completely autonomously, a goddamn rocket-powered hovering skycrane just entered atmosphere at 21000km/h, evaded crashing into its own parachute, flew to a designated landing spot with only 2km of error, and landed a ton of a rover on Mars with a touchdown speed of less than 1m/s before flying away. Damn science, you scary.

Don't you mean, "Damn, science, you awesome!"

I watched this on a slow wifi connection at TAFE, and curiously enough it only cut out after the landing was deemed a success.

I liked this gif quite a lot... I may have also reacted similarly, albeit without noise.

Who knows, maybe this will evolve into a dreaded reaction image?

[Erixxxx]

Science at it's best! This is amazing!

[kacperrutka26]

This thread is in the wrong section...

But still it's awesome that it landed on mars!

[ForumHelper]

14 light-minutes away from the nearest human being, completely autonomously, a goddamn rocket-powered hovering skycrane just entered atmosphere at 21000km/h, evaded crashing into its own parachute, flew to a designated landing spot with only 2km of error, and landed a ton of a rover on Mars with a touchdown speed of less than 1m/s before flying away. Damn science, you scary.

If there were any intelligent life forms on Mars, they'd be scared to death by this "metal" monster. Imagine you're walking around on Mars and suddenly this huge rover drops on ropes near you:O

[nibula]

Nasa did a great job!

[Phawks]

If there were any intelligent life forms on Mars, they'd be scared to death by this "metal" monster. Imagine you're walking around on Mars and suddenly this huge rover drops on ropes near you:O

I'm imagining the aftereffects of the skycrane jettison.

"ZOMG LARGE MONSTER OF FIRE AND METAL. At least it's half a kilometer that way."

*Curiosity touches down, skycrane detaches, begins flying toward observer to 'safely' crash land*

"FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU--------"

[Guest Thobewill]

Can you reupload that image?

[Bluejayek]

So.. does anybody know whether it was 2km or 200m off target they landed?

These are the rest of the landing specifications as they read them out in the control room

10:14:39

-0.607398m/s vertical landing velocity

0.044365m/s horizontal landing velocity

1.046kg fuel remaining

4.37 degrees offset from gravity z vector

-4.591817 degrees lat

137.4220437 degrees longitude

So, 0.6m/s landing is good enough for nasa it should be good enough here in ksp

[bandit4910]

Darn I missed the landing. Must of fallen asleep while on the computer... Anyways congrats to NASA. Now to make a rocket that can take actual people to mars.

[Acheron]