Hi.
The Nasa Rover MSL Curiosity landed safely on Mars using a new landing method.
Yours
tom!
They’re calling it the “seven minutes of terror,” and frankly I thought it too complex to work:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ_8Md4iK-o
Great work by NASA. Mind you, I can understand the “terror” bit. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this must have been the most complex extraterrestrial landing yet, and it depended totally on everything in a complex preprogramming scheme working perfectly. Years of work, billions of dollars, zillions of calculations and lines of code … all depended on pefrect execution, not to mention a bit of luck (would not want to have landed on a large boulder …). If I had been at Mission Control, chewing on my peanuts, I think I would have been pretty terrified. Fortunately, it all came off. Congrats again to the lads and lassies with the thick spectacles … JR.
Not many people know this - but there are Martians up there; and the Martians favour cats as pets. The other day, a Martian cat was walking along, minding its own business, when a great ugly metal thing, about the size of an SUV, with antennae, and legs, and probes, and things, dropped from the sky, and flattened the poor cat. Zap … cat … splat. A short time later, two Martians were out taking their evening walk, and they passed the slightly messy scene. Noticing a tail, two back legs and an oozy red mess protruding from beneath the Metal Thing, the first Martian turned to the other and asked, “What in Vulcan’s Name do you think happened here ?”. To which his friend replied, “I can’t be sure, but I think Curiosity killed the cat …”. Sorry, JR.
LOL !!. Now all we need is for Bugs and Daffy to turn up … JR.
There has been actual talk (not jokes, but real consideration) about possible one-way, manned missions to Mars ! One-way. . . . manned mission. . . unable to EVER return !
Apart from the obvious stupidity of this idea, the mental state of any astronaut willing to volunteer for such a thing must be immediately suspect.
A one-way mission is something not exactly something alien to science fiction. Even return missions featuring the wonderful by product of time slowing down near the speed of light basically WAS a one-way mission for an unfortunate astronaut on one of the old Twilight Zones, IIRC…
Then again, some missions are one-way, but the naive crews don’t know with the exception of a ruthless, but very polite, android!
Regarding one-way missions, Nick, I don’t know whether you have seen John Carpenter’s movie, “Dark Star” ? The scenario is that of a small, demoralised crew aboard the spaceship “Dark Star”, 20 years into a mission to destroy unstable planets in star systems destined for colonisation. Unfortunately, they are now stuck at the far end of some space-time continuum from an Earth with which they are only fitfully in contact, and which seems to have moved on (to say the least) and largely lost interest in what they are doing, any way. Add in a grumpy pet alien, and overly bright computerised bombs, and one is heading for a story that is both hilarious and somewhat moving. Seen by some as a low-budget sequel to "2001 - a Space Odyssey - and prequel to “Alien”, this is something of a minor gem, imho. Best regards, JR.
Really good new and thanks for pictures, Nick.
Love this space robotic staff as part of my hobby…