Mars Rover Curiosity Lands successfully!! LIVE THREAD

Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) ^ | 5 Aug 2012 | JPL

[hattend]

Landing at 10:30PM Pacific...yes, this is early so all the aviation, space, astronomy and science pingers can "get 'er done".

[21twelve]

I was at least able to pull someone in my family from the boob-tube to watch it - my 14 year-old daughter. Pretty cool to have her see scientists and explorers see the fruits of their HUGE efforts.

Ha - it sounds like they WERE betting on some of the landing parameters. (landing velocity of 0.14 g - congrats Alex)

[chessplayer]

I’m going out tomorrow night with my telescope and look at Mars knowing my name is on the planet!!!

“Send Your Name To Mars On Board NASA Mars Science Laboratory Rover”

http://www.mydigitallife.info/send-your-name-to-mars-on-board-nasa-mars-science-laboratory-rover-msl/

[colinhester]

Beautiful!!

[tophat9000]

So Curiosity stuck that gymnastic landing and won the gold !

[hattend]

Thanks everybody for participating

GREAT NIGHT

USA USA USA

Good night!

[LibWhacker]

Okay, I’m gettin’ silly. Lack of sleep. Night all!

[Bobalu]

I’m glad that there are many people still interested in this stuff.

I sent up a little embedded systems guys prayer as the craft was landing...lol. I have sent up many others before as some project I had built was getting its first smoke test.

I’m just so happy for those engineers! Many had tears streaming down their face...I admit to a few here as I cheered for them.

I just love this kind of stuff... I wish I had been able to work on the control systems on board the craft! Oh what joy that would have been :-)

I can now sleep soundly knowing it’s on the ground.

[Strategerist]

So is everyone looking for life on other planets an atheist?

[af_vet_rr]

Awesome dude, served his country with honor and deserves our thanks and respect. But he sucks as the head of NASA. But that has more to do with his boss then him.

Exactly. Put him under a different President with an actual vision of greatness for this country, and give NASA the support it needs, and this country could be doing many great things, to the point where things like this landing aren't such a big deal.

[prisoner6]

I wonder of Odyssey was able to video the landing and how long before the data is returned. That would be icing on the cake.

[PA Engineer]

I’m going to have another daily bookmark to check. Thanks for the picture.

[MestaMachine]

I thought that too, but I don’t do alcohol so I grabbed a glass of Hawaiian Punch and almost dropped the glass on the floor. I am still shaking and excited and not even oscama could ruin this. For once. G-d bless the USA!

[rdl6989]

Yes I read somewhere they had a camera set up to do that.

[Empireoftheatom48]

I love this stuff!

[DoughtyOne]

I pretty much agree. I’d sure like to see some big incentives to get the private sector to meet more achievement targets in short order though.

As long as the private sector gets us where we need to go, I think it’s much more healthy. It means that finally we’ll be entering space on for-profit ventures.

I would dearly love to be able to spend a week in a space hotel before I go toes up.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

And couldn’t you Martians dust? You knew company was coming.

[af_vet_rr]

I wonder of Odyssey was able to video the landing and how long before the data is returned. That would be icing on the cake.

I don't know, but images are pouring in, just their site can't keep up - http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/multimedia/raw/

[colinhester]

Thanks for link!

[af_vet_rr]

Anybody know where you can get a model kit of Curiosity, or anything approaching it? Would make for a great birthday gift for my great-nephew. I may just have to settle for one of the posters, but it’d be great to have him build a model of it.

[DoughtyOne]

Exactly. How embarrassing for them...