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Curiosity nails perfect landing on Mars
Boston Herald ^ | Aug 6, 2012 | AP

Posted on 08/06/2012 4:22:01 AM PDT by Islander7

PASADENA, Calif. — In a show of technological wizardry, the robotic explorer Curiosity blazed through the pink skies of Mars, steering itself to a gentle landing inside a giant crater for the most ambitious dig yet into the red planet’s past.

Cheers and applause echoed through the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory late Sunday after the most high-tech interplanetary rover ever built signaled it had survived a harrowing plunge through the thin Mars atmosphere.

(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: curiosity; mars; marslanding; marsrover; nasa; science; space
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To: deoetdoctrinae
"We can put an SUV sized explorer on Mars, but we can't cure the common cold"

Why? Because Mars is basically immutable -- stable orbit, predicable climate, exact measurements of gravity, a well-known map, while the virus causing the common cold mutates constantly. If the virus was stable it would have been cured decades ago.

If those Mars physical features mutated as rapidly as the cold virus then one year it would look like today's Mars, the next year like Jupiter, the next year like the moon. The new features would not be predictable and, because it takes a rocket almost one year to travel from Earth to Mars, there is definitely NO WAY one could design a rocket to address all possibilities of orbit, gravity, atmosphere, etc.

Incidentally, I betcha that more money is spent each year trying to cure the common cold than was spent on the Mars mission anyway.

121 posted on 08/06/2012 3:22:00 PM PDT by tom h
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To: hal ogen
What’s with NASA landing on and exploring Mars???? Aren’t they ordered by the Great Leader (aka: nobama) to be some sort of moozlum outreach?

Yeah...they should be concentrating on the Moon-god.

how do you face mecca when you are on Mars?

Well, I think you'd generally have to face towards Earth.

122 posted on 08/06/2012 3:23:22 PM PDT by ROCKLOBSTER (Celebrate Republicans Freed the Slaves Month.)
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To: from occupied ga

You clearly don’t understand the actual reason for the Apollo project.


123 posted on 08/06/2012 3:25:18 PM PDT by Fledermaus (Democrats are dangerous and evil. Republicans are useless and useful idiots.)
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To: Former Proud Canadian
It too Curiousity 253 days to get to Mars.

While folks live in the space capsule on a regular basis, IIRC, they're only 200 miles away.

124 posted on 08/06/2012 3:39:43 PM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: Former Proud Canadian

Oops....meant space station...not capsule


125 posted on 08/06/2012 3:43:32 PM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: Richard from IL

“GPS did not come from NASA research. I should know since my Dad invented it.”

GPS wouldn’t work worth a damn if we didn’t have the knowledge and technology to build, launch, insert into specific orbits and predict with certain accuracy the position of SATELLITES.

Where do you think that came from?


126 posted on 08/06/2012 4:15:02 PM PDT by Nik Naym (It's not my fault... I have compulsive smartass disorder.)
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To: Nik Naym
Some of that came from my Dad. He designed Minitrack and the Naval Space Surveillance System (two tracking systems). He also designed the Vanguard 1. I'm in the first six seconds of this video of yours truly, my brother and three sisters. We'll shown around the Vanguard 1 a week or two before its launch in March, 1958. I'm wearing the red coat.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msLSW1U1t1U

There will many more details in the book about GPS I'm writing with a co-author to be published in 2013.

127 posted on 08/06/2012 4:41:30 PM PDT by Richard from IL
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To: Kegger

GPS did not come from NASA research. I should know since my Dad invented it.

Does the Getting & Parkinson families know this?

Parkinson knows. See my article http://www.thespacereview.com/article/626/1
See Parkinson’s letter and my response.
http://www.insidegnss.com/node/2086

And my further response.
http://www.ion.org/newsletter/v21n1.pdf

The book I’m writing will contain further details.


128 posted on 08/06/2012 5:10:53 PM PDT by Richard from IL
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To: Richard from IL

“There will many more details in the book about GPS I’m writing with a co-author to be published in 2013.”

Sounds like just the kind of book I love to read.

I would be pleased if you would send me a freepmail or a ping when you release your book!


129 posted on 08/06/2012 5:20:29 PM PDT by Nik Naym (It's not my fault... I have compulsive smartass disorder.)
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To: Nik Naym

Will do! I spoke recently at the “After Longitude” conference held at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich (UK).

http://www.rmg.co.uk/upload/pdf/AFTER_LONGITUDE_abstracts.pdf
http://www.rin.org.uk/resources.aspx?ID=483&SectionID=23

Richard Easton


130 posted on 08/06/2012 5:33:22 PM PDT by Richard from IL
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To: from occupied ga

One thing this mission pushes is American robotics technology. It’s a very complex robotics system from launch to landing to doing work. There’s a very good reason conservatives should be very pro-robotics anything: if engineers drive the hourly cost of robotics down to minimum wage then the socialists will stop stealing our stuff and instead confiscate all the work output of robots. Technology is the second front in getting socialism off our backs. We’re slowly failing on the first front. It’s only buying us time. Robotics will eventually enable our vast and growing leisure class to lay about like they want to and leave us alone.


131 posted on 08/06/2012 6:01:15 PM PDT by Reeses (Sustainable energy? Let's first have sustainable government.)
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To: Reeses
Robotics will eventually enable our vast and growing leisure class to lay about like they want to and leave us alone.

LOL! Good one.

132 posted on 08/06/2012 6:11:52 PM PDT by Balding_Eagle (Liberals, at their core, are aggressive & dangerous to everyone around them,)
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To: Former Proud Canadian
Ok, I guess those buying it at recent prices of up to $2,000/litre are really getting taken advantage of.

yep people paid $241/share for rim stock a couple of years ago. idiots. Oh,and btw plutonium was not present in detectable amounts 100 year ago.

. It will be needed on the moon for various manufacturing processes and life support

Now you're just blowing out science fiction or maybe you think Gingrich wasn't just blowing pink smoke for votes.

Read my previous posts again.

No thanks reading them twice still doesn't make them anything but pipe dreams.

I'm glad you weren't anywhere near the Wright Cycle shop in Dayton in 1901 to tell the owners that wind tunnel they were building lah blah blah

I guess since you were a canadian you don't realize that the Wright brothers paid for their experimentation PRIVATELY. No government funding, or maybe you just agree with 0bama that "You didn't build that."

133 posted on 08/06/2012 7:32:16 PM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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To: G-Bear

Did your Dad invent the rocket to put a payload in a 10,000 mile high orbit?

No, but one his colleagues at NRL, Pete Wilhelm, devised innovates techniques to cheaply launch a satellite into 12 hour orbits.

[quote]He was awarded the National Medal of Technology for “his invention of the Minitrack satellite tracking system used to track Vanguard satellites and determine orbits; his development of the Naval Space Surveillance System still in use today cataloging all known man-made space objects orbiting Earth; his invention of a “Navigation System Using Satellites and Passive Ranging Techniques” and his subsequent development of Time Navigation and Navigation Technology Satellites that formed the technological basis for modern GPS.”

Easton conceived, patented, and led the development of critical enabling technologies for the United States Global Positioning System (GPS). GPS today is a constellation of Earth-orbiting satellites providing precise navigation and timing data to military and civilian users. Easton, as a scientist and engineer at NRL, developed his concept for a time-based navigational system with passive ranging, circular orbits, and space-borne high precision clocks synchronized to a master clock.[/quote]

http://www.nrl.navy.mil/media/news-releases/2005/president-announces-roger-eastonrecipient-of-national-medal-of-technology


134 posted on 08/06/2012 7:40:23 PM PDT by Richard from IL
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To: Reeses
Don't think we need too much more
135 posted on 08/06/2012 7:40:49 PM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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To: TXnMA; betty boop
Thank you so much for sharing your insights, dear brother in Christ!

I'm very impressed with the advances in space exploration and my faith is not threatened by anything they have found or might find.

Indeed, I only get upset when scientists try to do philosophy or politics under the color of science - e.g. Dawkins, Pinker, Singer and Lewontin.

136 posted on 08/06/2012 8:46:07 PM PDT by Alamo-Girl
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To: from occupied ga
"Everything that can be invented has been invented." -Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899

“640K ought to be enough for anybody.” -Bill Gates, 1981

137 posted on 08/07/2012 3:16:18 AM PDT by Reeses (Sustainable energy? Let's first have sustainable government.)
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To: Reeses
"... invented."

"Invent all you want, but keep your hand out of my pocket and off my hard earned money when you pay for it." occupied ga 2012.

You space kadets on FR seem to confuse government spending with innovation. Government spending is simply opportunity lost in the private sector.

138 posted on 08/07/2012 3:52:09 AM PDT by from occupied ga (Your government is your most dangerous enemy)
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To: Alamo-Girl; betty boop; winodog; stinkerpot65
"Indeed, I only get upset when scientists try to do philosophy or politics under the color of science - e.g. Dawkins, Pinker, Singer and Lewontin.

True. Leave off the "only", and we are in full agreement! '-)

What I found upsetting in this case was a couple of would-be CREVO thread hijackers who imputed Satanic motives to all scientists -- including yours truly -- when I clearly stated "I am a creationist".

~~~~~~~~~

winodog and stinkerpot65 do you really think you advanced your "witness" by poking your ill-educated noses into this technical thread and making non sequitur accusations against folks who were celebrating a great technical accomplishment?

And do you believe it was Christ-like to mis-quote Scripture to accuse a fellow believer of being under the influence of "the prince of the air"? (Read Ephesians 2:2)

No wonder many scientists are disgusted by so-called "Christians"... :-(

139 posted on 08/07/2012 9:53:56 AM PDT by TXnMA ("Allah": Satan's current alias...)
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To: TXnMA

You have some sort of a problem. You need to go back and reread what I wrote.

You took it out of context and you are still attacking me with names.
Make sure you call others attention to it like you are doing some big service putting others down.

But if it makes you feel like a big man, go ahead


140 posted on 08/07/2012 10:18:06 AM PDT by winodog
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