Congratulations to NASA and JPL, Curiosity touch down.

[PELHAM 10]

Great landing and one of the greatest technical achievements in space to date. I was up early to watch and hopefully everything is OK.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/index.html

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Edited August 6, 2012 by PELHAM

[Prydain 1]

Was/is awesome. Watched it too.

[DnA 5042]

Seven minutes of terror spent well. A hugely important feat. Congratulations to everybody involved

[batto 17]

Reliable source from NASA leaked out this:

They tried to censor it to avoid panic.

[eble 3]

Reliable source from NASA leaked out this:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hQwvriYA5bI/UB9be-zfsWI/AAAAAAAAWLM/1OcIL_hTGH4/s407/mars.jpg

They tried to censor it to avoid panic.

Great work, consider what this thing did etc :)

I'd love to see something like that would the make a much smaller place!

[PELHAM 10]

Reliable source from NASA leaked out this:

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hQwvriYA5bI/UB9be-zfsWI/AAAAAAAAWLM/1OcIL_hTGH4/s407/mars.jpg

They tried to censor it to avoid panic.

Lol. Fire the LASER!

Edited August 6, 2012 by PELHAM

[Colossus 2]

I didn't think they could land it, but they did. What we saw from MER 'Spirit' & 'Opportunity' (I think it's still alive) was pretty good, but I think Curiosity' is going to blow them out of the sky. Not only is it much larger, but it also doesn't depend on the sun for power. It's going to be interesting to see how this voyage turns out, once they have done their systems checks. Hopefully those checks won't take too long to complete.

[Darkhorse 1-6 16]

I was watching it live on my android while at work. Went 10 minutes over my allotted break time and nearly got caught when I let out a cheer. Anybody else hear somebody say "Oh shit!"? Or see those two that got their lanyards tangled up during the cheering/hugging/happytime? :D

Edited August 6, 2012 by Darkhorse 1-6

[PELHAM 10]

NASA's Curiosity rover and its parachute were spotted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter as Curiosity descended to the surface on Aug. 5 PDT (Aug. 6 EDT). The High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera captured this image of Curiosity while the orbiter was listening to transmissions from the rover. Credit: NASA

A friend bought Mars bars for everyone on his office floor to celebrate the event. By lunchtime he tells me he also had to send a group email to quash the rumour that astronauts had landed on the planet Mars. FPDR

[Hans Ludwig 0]

Eight billion dollars wasted on sending a very expensive remote control car to find out what we already know or don't really care: Life doesn't exist anymore on Mars. I probably wouldn't care at all if these scientist went to Kickstarter to fund their own adventures instead of using my money, or I should say the Chinese' money that was lent to us by buying our bonds.

[ProfTournesol 956]

Eight billion dollars wasted on sending a very expensive remote control car to find out what we already know or don't really care: Life doesn't exist anymore on Mars. I probably wouldn't care at all if these scientist went to Kickstarter to fund their own adventures instead of using my money, or I should say the Chinese' money that was lent to us by buying our bonds.

With such narrowminded view, your country wouldn't even been discovered.

[Hans Ludwig 0]

With such narrowminded view, your country wouldn't even been discovered.

The East India Company wasn't funded through taxes, but rather selling of stock. In other words, they were able to do what they did because of capital. If you need any lessons on US history, feel free to PM.

By the way, I'm half Sioux. That side of my family would lay claim to discovering North American thousands of years before the Europeans on a fraction of the cost.

There is always someone like you that loves spending other peoples' money on discovering something that is not that important. It really doesn't make any logical sense to borrow money from China to fund such a trip that then devalues personal savings and creates inflation, the increase in prices for goods and services. Wouldn't it have been better served taking care of those that most directly needed it because of the bad economy?

[Sakowski 1]

Eight billion dollars wasted on sending a very expensive remote control car to find out what we already know or don't really care: Life doesn't exist anymore on Mars. I probably wouldn't care at all if these scientist went to Kickstarter to fund their own adventures instead of using my money, or I should say the Chinese' money that was lent to us by buying our bonds.

We are humans duhh, We want to explore, discover new things... They dont only look for life on mars but if its suitable for us humans to live there when our planet will be no longer habitable because of our stupidity

Or perhaps US has differ way... Oil young chap? Naaa

[PELHAM 10]

Ummmm I thought it was $2.6 billion?

That's $2.6 billion over the course of nearly 8 years. That's about $325 million a year. The amount of money spent on Curiosity's development, flight, and two year mission is the amount of money that the US Department of Defense spends every 36 hours.

There are lots of journalists asking "is it worth it?". That's because they don't understand the science or the engineering or it's importance and find it boring. Space science has thousands of spin offs that benefit everyone, every day.

http://www.nasa.gov/50th/50th_magazine/benefits.html

Edited August 10, 2012 by PELHAM

[Hans Ludwig 0]

Ummmm I thought it was $2.6 billion?

It depends on how you're calculating inflation, and you are also forgetting to factor in budget/cost overruns, which the Office of Budget and Management never includes in their reports. Unfortunately we will have to wait for either next fiscal year or next quarter for the Congressional Budget Office to release their cost and benefit analysis.

There are lots of journalists asking "is it worth it?". That's because they don't understand the science or the engineering or it's importance and find it boring. Space science has thousands of spin offs that benefit everyone, every day.

Of course you like this adventure NASA took because you didn't pay for it. It's what economist call the Moral Hazard. It's also a subjective, value based judgement you placed on this NASA mission.

We are humans duhh, We want to explore, discover new things...

Who is arguing against that? If you want to send something to Mars to look for life, then do it through capital investment or actually pay for it yourself, which I hardly doubt you did the later of.

Edited August 10, 2012 by Hans Ludwig

[STALKERGB 6]

@Hans, well yeah technically you can say a lot of things humans do are completely pointless, but then thinking like that never gets us anywhere. Although MSL's Curiosity will be an incredibly useful scientific resource the fact that as a race, we have proven we are capable of doing such a thing successfully is an achievement in of itself.

Just because a scientific project wasn't privately funded and you don't think it was worth the time and money doesn't mean it wasn't worth it. A lot of scientific discoveries have come off the back of funding from a government.

With such narrowminded view, your country wouldn't even been discovered.

The East India Company wasn't funded through taxes, but rather selling of stock. In other words, they were able to do what they did because of capital. If you need any lessons on US history, feel free to PM.

I assume we are talking about the discovery of the Americas? In which case Columbus was employed by the Spanish Monarchy, in fact before getting Spanish support didn't he go to the Portuguese Monarchy to try to get their backing? The East India Company had nothing to do with it though.

Ummmm I thought it was $2.6 billion?

The Telegraph put the price of the rover itself at only $1.6Bn, and MSL's total project costs at around $2.5Bn (which includes the rover) :)

EDIT: The colour photos from the surface look really good!

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/675227main_pia16029-full_full.jpg

http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/675358main_pia16032-full_full.jpg

Edited August 10, 2012 by STALKERGB

[Sennacherib 0]

science was/is/will be the future of manking. I'm proud to be an human, when I see a such a feat. money is never wasted for science, but it is wasted to pay footballers and other athletes.

[PELHAM 10]

It depends on how you're calculating inflation, and you are also forgetting to factor in budget/cost overruns, which the Office of Budget and Management never includes in their reports. Unfortunately we will have to wait for either next fiscal year or next quarter for the Congressional Budget Office to release their cost and benefit analysis.

It's $2.6 Billion over 8 years - 6 of those years have already passed with $1.8 Billion of the budget expended on development and launch, if it continues work after it's remaining 2 years that will cost extra but nowhere near $8 Billion. To give you some idea, the 10 years of mission extensions to both previous Mars Rovers have cost $124 million. Sorry - the $8 Billion you made up, is just nonsense.

Lol at the East India Company discovering the Americas, it was founded over a century after to trade exclusively on a different continent........the clue is in the name.

Edited August 10, 2012 by PELHAM

[mrcash2009 0]

The Telegraph put the price of the rover itself at only $1.6Bn, and MSL's total project costs at around $2.5Bn (which includes the rover)

The fact that we debate "only" within the billion range is funny based on what a 1-2 billion injection could do elsewhere for sure on the planet we reside on right now & try to live.

Although I am impressed on what they have achieved from a technical standpoint to slingshot that size machinery that far and get it to land on a pretty much untested entry (well untested until its actually happening). Interesting to check out more of the hi res images.

But the other side of me is on the lines of Hans view in terms of sticking a highly expensive bit of kit on a barren planet we dont live on taking pictures of it looking as such and science getting its jolly's off on the data. Interesting, I have a conflicting view on it from both ends, cant disagree on the technical and science aspect, but then not so impressed on the grand scheme of human life, the here and now and the way things are in the here and right now, no matter the data and snapshots.

I guess anything further derails the point of the thread (heading into USA politics territory) for the achievement and the subject, but, well .... 2 billion ..... barren planet and science benefits .... life on earth now and current economic situation ..... hmmmmm, not sure.

Although congrats to the team for the achievement ... I think this is what's known as a happy sand switch post.

Edited August 12, 2012 by mrcash2009

[PELHAM 10]

The fact that we debate "only" within the billion range is funny based on what a 1-2 billion injection could do elsewhere for sure on the planet we reside on right now & try to live.

Think of it as extreme engineering and research and development. What are the possible spinoffs? It's doubtfull many of the benefits all of us experience today would exist without projects like this. The money doesn't simply disappear into space, it funds thousands of science, engineering and manufacturing jobs, that is important to the economy:

NASA Launches New Technology Transfer Portal

"A priority of NASA is to get federally-funded new technologies into the commercial marketplace," said NASA Chief Technologist Mason Peck. "We're hopeful that entrepreneurs, businesses of all sizes and anyone looking for innovative solutions to technology problems will explore NASA's Technology Transfer Portal to find opportunities to transfer NASA technologies into innovative solutions for the nation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spin-off_technologies

http://spinoff.nasa.gov/

http://www.techbriefs.com/

You could of course simply dump the money for short term gain, then the people that benefited would return next year and ask for more, as they always do......

Edited August 12, 2012 by PELHAM

[hellfire257 3]

Money spent on science is money well spent.

[mrcash2009 0]

I think the difference here is this specific part of science not "science and funding" as a whole. It will indeed work within its own field I would imagine for more exploration of the (empty) planet.

You could of course simply dump the money for short term gain, then the people that benefited would return next year and ask for more, as they always do......

Well of course you can put it that way, I certainly wouldn't. There is a myriad of long tem research it could be used for that doesnt have to be simply dumping into a hole becuase it didnt go to this project. Although, it did and its an interesting one, but as I say, I just wobble on the funds part and the planet we are on now.

Edited August 12, 2012 by mrcash2009

[PELHAM 10]

Well of course you can take the narrow view that this project exists in isolation and cutting it wouldn't matter. It's part of a larger program and cutting it would damage everything else, it would also ignore the deep budget cuts that have already taken place and points to a deep ignorance of the subject or possibly the usual wilful trolling and US bashing.

The Mars program has already had it's budget slashed and 2 missions cancelled, so it's had it's round of budget cuts along with the rest of NASA, you have to leave them something or you lose the expertise. Putting all these people out of work wouldn't really be be the right thing to do in the long term and would affect the US economy as a whole.

NASA Authorization Act of 2010.

According to the Act, "The long-term goal of the human spaceflight and exploration efforts of NASA shall be to expand permanent human presence beyond low-Earth orbit and to do so, where practical, in a manner involving international partners."

The two places this will occur are the Moon and Mars. Mars exploration requires practice as it's more difficult to land there than either the Earth or Moon. That's what some people fail to understand, the landing phase of this mission was probably far more significant than the exploration phase. It's something that requires experience, if space exploration is to advance and meet the goals set for it, or, don't set the goals in the 1st place.

It's interesting to note that whenever NASA appears in the headlines it is always closely followed by this sort media heckling about cost. I've seen it occur for decades even though NASA's share of the federal budget decreases every year. NASA's budget in 2012 is the the lowest % share of the Federal Budget (0.48%) in 52 years. Strange that the media rarely ask the same questions about other nations space activities as there are many with very expensive space programs contrasted by severe poverty problems far worse than anything in the US: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_space_agencies

It may be wise for NASA to put aside some money for the future. Looking at the recent decline in rationality and intelligent debate on most blogs, there could be just cause to plan for a future search for intelligent life on Earth.

Edited August 13, 2012 by PELHAM

[dmarkwick 261]

I fail to see why bickering over the budget takes precedence over the accomplishment of the mission. But if real savings should occur, then they should occur by scrapping Trident & all the other weapons that will never be used, and if they are will ruin the planet more completely. Deterrent? Waste of money IMO.

That said I should like to congratulate the efforts made to make this mission a success.

[mrcash2009 0]

I fail to see why bickering over the budget takes precedence over the accomplishment of the mission.

It doesn't really, I made that clear while also suggesting its a side issue ref funding, but an interesting one ref to Hans point.

and points to a deep ignorance of the subject or possibly the usual wilful trolling and US bashing.

Complete bollocks and not needed to be raked into it.

Looking at the recent decline in rationality and intelligent debate on most blogs, there could be just cause to plan for a future search for intelligent life on Earth.

Not really needed, always expected, hey ho.