Countdown: Curiousity Mars landing
 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Science_Laboratory

5 days, 3 hours to go!

Go science! :D

Good luck to them :salute:

I hope they have a safe landing!:up:

http://iphone22.arc.nasa.gov/public/....php?id=429329

Only a few hours to go!

But to be honest, IMO, there's a strong chance if a crash landing. Like 20% IMO. Such a complicated system, untested too.

Well, they're careful in trying to adjust their expectations and saying that even if it's a failure, it will be something that will produce useful data to learn from for the future. If nothing else, it is certainly a very calculated risk and something that, in theory, a computer-controlled system can do perfectly well. In practice, well, we'll see. I'm really looking forward to the news tonight either way!

Apparently it made it!

Great news! :yeah:

Can't wait to see what data comes out in the next few days. Hopefully this is going to be as exciting scientifically as Spirit and Opportunity had been.

Some cool images from the lander already starting to come through... http://www.nasa.gov/externalflash/ma...ity_news3.html

There's no way the mission can be as successful longevity wise. 90 day warranty and they last how many years now?

At that rate, people will be disappointed if it doesn't last 30 years.

Would be cool to see them meet up in 75 years though. :D

Hoax, it's all a hoax!!! All photoshop and theatre! :O:

Oh man, not another one.:hmmm:

Mars orbiter sees Curiosity's parachute deployed from above


http://a2.sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphot...54971091_n.jpg

It was all filmed on a soundstage on the Moon!

Will we see an another race in space, like the one between USA and USSR?

I think so, only this time it will be between USA and China- I think that after China have put a man on the Moon(if not the alien prevent them to do so :haha:) -they will go further and go for Mars

For America it will be a real blow if China is the first country to put a man on Mars and not them.

Markus

It will be a long time before China can send a man to Mars.

For some of us here, we will be dead by the time the US sends men to Mars.

Actually, I think china beating the us/ESA/rus to mars might be a good thing for those space agencies.

Not for want of manpower, I think there are thousands of people who would volunteer to go to Mars, of course, out of them only perhaps 25% would be fit enough to be able to actually go...but that's still at least two hundred people.
If only we could put the kind of energy that put a man on the moon into putting a man onto Mars, and then further on.

We have the technology, we have the manpower, we have the need, but we've built such complex walls and rules around advancement and technology based upon finance that it is choking us.

I hope I live to see pictures of mankinds first step on Mars, I really do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZ5sWfhkpE0

I am not sure we have the technology at this point. Traveling to Mars is not like just a longer moon trip. It is pretty complicated.

I will agree that we have the people though.

About that need thing? Honestly, I feel it is a very low need and more a desire than a need.

I feel that a lot more can be learned about Mars by orbiters and rovers than by anyone planting a flag and picking up a few rocks. Once we have exhausted our ability to extract information from unmanned missions, only then should we consider manned missions.

The worry I have is that as our population continues to grow unhindered and our drain on resources does as well, unless we have a population level out as per the theory put forward (very well) by Hans Rosling and we manage to wean ourselves off oil then the next fifty years are looking very shakey for us. We will either turn inwards and fight ourselves to death, or look outwards and head into space, and quite honestly I can't say for certain which way we will swing, at the moment it's certainly looking like the former rather than the latter.
Furthermore, the problems with being limited to one planet are immense, we have a very fragile hold and with one virus, one asteroid, one global nuclear exchange, everything we have done for the past two thousand years, gone. The human race would survive, but our progress would be put back by several generations. It'd be like walking up to the very edge of the pool and then being kicked in the balls before you can jump into the water.
Now in terms of technology, I think our primary problem is logistics, drive systems we have a few and lots of theories that lack funding to become either fact or fiction, and people wouldn't be a problem. It would be feeding and watering those people that would be the biggest problem I'd say. Journey time to Mars and back could be reduced significantly if we turned our nuclear weapons into fuel for an Orion drive vessel, constructed in orbit in order to avoid the distasteful (but minimal) nuclear fallout generated in a land-based launch.
From there the possibilities are only as limited as we make them, Orion drive ships could take us to Alpha Centauri, and beyond! And unlike most advanced drive systems out there, work could begin on an Orion drive tomorrow if certain treaties were worked around.
I just worry that if we don't get our collective arses in gear within the next century then it'll be too late for us.
Alternatively, it could just be a selfish instinct to want to be alive to see these things take place. :03:

I have to agree with you Oberon. What it would take for these things to happen (the looking outward part) I have no idea. I agree with the "selfish instinct" too,lol I would give anything to be around long enough just to see what the future holds for the Voyager spacecraft, just what they might encounter in the next few years. Both Voyagers are still sending back signals to earth, even after being in space for 35 years now! Voyager 1 is just about out of our solar system, Voyager 2 is not far behind. They just completed sending instructions to Voyager 2, to switch to its backup thruster systems, and it has responded by doing so!

Voyager 1 is 11 Billion miles from our sun,and is sending back information that boggles the mind. It is so much more interesting to me, then all the crap we are inundated with everyday, that's for sure!

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/vo...r20111205.html

We sat for what seem' s an eternity to find out if Curiousity had landed safely, it takes 16 hours and 38 minutes to get a signal from Voyager.