Curiosity has landed on MARS!!!

... and the most complex one to date.

Yep sure is.

I hope they contiue to grow the space program

The ONLY way that will happen is if we the voting tax payers DEMAND that this type of pure science continues to be supported.

Since the HIGH of 4.3% of the national budget to its present less than 0.5% of the national budget the Space program has been the scapegoat of every single administration. The Obama Administration has at least kept the dollar amount the same. The only drawback has been the Extreme damage done to the program during the Bush II administration which reduced the dollar amounts EVERY year for the full 8 years in office.

2% of the national budget for pure science research for space exploration is not something we will miss and will create high tech good paying jobs which in turn will ripple outward into the economy as well.

It is time the US stepped up and stays the leader in the space programs and mans future exploration of the universe.

100% agreement my freind

A great experience.

A significant achievement.

Did you stay up and watch it online?

For me it tied with watching the moon landing

CONGRATULATIONS NASA AND THE USA

Practice makes perfect. I think most of these landings, are mostly to try different landing techniques.

This one was out of necessity being the mother of invention.

They couldn't use the inflated ball method since Curisoity was too heavy. They couldn't use the same kind of lander like with the moon landings because it would contaminate for 100's of feet around the landing site. So a sky crane was the best yet most complicated solution. AND THE GOT IT RIGHT!!!

Why was the parachute avoided?

They did use a parachute. A Supersonic one that opened at better than Mach2 and slowed the craft down to less than 500mph. From there the landing unit with the sky crane and Curiosity continued the discent until it was some 50 feet of the ground and lowered down 35 feet of the crane and Curiosity touched down. The nylon cables were sheared off and the power unit flew away and crashed landed some ways away.

....so it wasn't enough Curiosity killed the cat, now Curiosity is planning interplanetary domination o.o

Well done to NASA

Oh~ Yeeeeeah~

ABSOLUTELY AWESOME ;-}

Now they only need to put people on it!

Astronomy and NASA always interest me :)

I was a young woman when American astronauts first walked on the moon. we believed then that a man on Mars wouldn't be far behind be it a US astronaut or a Soviet Cosmonaut. Wow, have things changed. The collapse of the Soviet system, the overly generous nanny-state governments in Europe, the cost of waging wars, the cost of the massive effort to make America Greener, political cronyism and insider trading and the sequestration of wealth by the ultra-rich who can afford to sit on trillions until it is reinvested have drive the world to the edge of global bankruptcy. I will probably never see another man on the moon or Mars.

This is freaking amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Next time may I go along, please!?

Only if I can have the seat next to you.

Sounds like fun, if ur wife doesn't mind.

She'll be in the cargo hold. LOL. She wouldn't get a seat in an airplane unless she could have at least 3 T&J's first and even then she'd need a qualude to walk the boarding ramp. LOL> We went to Hawaii one summer and she nearly freaked as the plane took off. I ordered a couple of drinks and she took the BOTH!

Oh well.

Then maybe we should just leave her at home.

I'd never get to go then. lol

Then I suppose we'll have to stuff her in the cargo hold, as you said. I was just thinking of her comfort.

She'd like the deeeep sleeeep of the cargo hold.

Sounds like a great traveling companion, unless she snores.

She snores and talks in her sleep. Not just an occasional word or two but entire conversations. Drives me nuts sometimes.

I snore, too, so I can't say much, but maybe she wouldn't be heard in the cargo hold.

Nice!

I was watching it on line. Boy my mind went back to July 20,1969. I was 14 and fighting to stay awake to watch the Eagle land on the moon. I remember my mother bringing a small B&W; tv to school in 1961 to watch the orbit of the Earth. We didn't have TV's in school then. Kids today think a new IPOD is it. NASA made that stuff all possible.

Obama wants to shut it all down, I pray it doesn't come to that.

I was as you, but you've got one thing wrong. BUSH II started the cutbacks in the NASA budgets back when he first took office.

President Obama has set a goal for the US to put a manned mission on Mars in the 2030's. To me that is too far out but considering the roughly $400 billion it would cost that is a doable timeline.

BUT I'd rather see the US change it's space strategy to supporting the MARS-ONE Project and concentrate the main US efforts on a Lunar Base. Let the MARS-ONE Project put a colony on MARS with international support.

You are very wrong about President Obama.

I will never live to see that one.

You may, The Mars-One Program is scheduled to set men/women on Mars in 2023.

Good for NASA.
One step for man, and one big leap from mankind. Let's hope we'll learn some great things about Mars.