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Firsts

NASA Did It – We’re One Step Closer To Vacations On Mars

by Alanna Bennett | 12:37 pm, August 6th, 2012


“Nothing like this has ever happened before,” said James Holdren, President Barack Obama’s space advisor. “It’s an enormous step forward in planetary exploration.” After sailing through space for more than eight months, the Mars Science Lab–also known as Curiosity–touched down on Mars last night, landing inside a really ancient space crater. 

Covering 352 million miles in its trip to the Red Planet, Curiosity began its two-year, pioneering exploratory mission to seek out information on whether Mars ever supported life. The largest, most advanced spacecraft ever sent into space, Curiosity stuck quite the impressive landing, involving a parachute, a rocket-pack and a tether. Here’s the first leaked shot of what that looked like courtesy of io9.com:

Yes, that’s another craft taking a picture of the rover with HiRISE, a really, really expensive camera.

The operation allowed for essentially zero margin for error, but it went beautifully. Between this and the Olympics, it’s a pretty good time for marveling at the wonders of humanity. As The LA Times puts it:

Curiosity is expected to revolutionize deep-space science, not only searching for indications that Mars is or was habitable, but paving the way for the next critical steps in exploration — soil-sample returns, sending astronauts to Mars, even, perhaps, colonization.

President Obama also released a statement on the event:

“Tonight, on the planet Mars, the United States of America made history. The successful landing of Curiosity – the most sophisticated roving laboratory ever to land on another planet – marks an unprecedented feat of technology that will stand as a point of national pride far into the future. It proves that even the longest of odds are no match for our unique blend of ingenuity and determination.”

The rover (or rather, the people in charge of its social media presence) livetweeted the whole excursion with some very entertaining statements:

There were also some really cute exchanges between Mars Curiosity and astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. The journey to the planet was pretty impressive in and of itself:

Launched on November 26 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, the robotic lab sailed through space for more than eight months, covering 352 million miles (566 million km), before piercing Mars’ thin atmosphere at 13,000 miles per hour — 17 times the speed of sound — and starting its descent. Encased in a protective capsule-like shell, the craft utilized a first-of-its kind automated flight-entry system to sharply reduce its speed. Then the probe rode a huge, supersonic parachute into the lower atmosphere before a jet-powered backpack NASA called a “sky crane” carried Curiosity most of the rest of the way to its destination, lowering it to the ground by nylon tethers.  
 

The livestream of the landing was chock-full of excitement and history-making, one of the highlights being the ability to watch the people at mission control basically leap around out of pure joy.

Inside mission control, engineers who had been chewing the insides of their cheeks and bouncing their legs nervously leapt to their feet, embracing, high-fiving and, in some cases, weeping with joy. “Yes!” one engineer cried, pumping his fist. “We did it again!” another shouted.

Oh, and if you’re wondering what the view from over there looks like:

“I can’t believe this, this is unbelievable,” said Allen Chen, who is deputy chief of Curiosity’s descent and landing team. It is pretty unbelievable. But now it’s happened, so we have to believe it.

For now, Mars Curiosity is only sending black and white photos but we’ll soon be seeing the planet in all its red glory.

(via Discovery, NASA, LA Times, Reuters)

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  • Anonymous

    Curiosity is on Twitter?! What a world we’ve got!

  • Amanda W

    I am so following that twitter feed…

  • Anonymous

    I urge everyone to watch the video of NASA celebrating the landing. The room just exploded with cheers. It was rather touching to see grown men cry and realize they’ve worked for most of their lives for that moment.
    It made my heart so happy.

    *girly moment over*

  • http://zadl.org/ Captain ZADL

    Saw this on Twitter:  

    “Dear Religion, While you were debating what chicken sandwiches were okay to eat, I just landed on Mars. Sincerely, Your Pal Science”

  • http://twitter.com/DoctorOddfellow Doctor Oddfellow

    I like to think right now all the older rovers are throwing Curiosity a big party right now. Welcome to the neighborhood! Oppy’s all oh, oh, let me show you my favorite rocks! Viking’s all back in my day, we didn’t have “the Twitters!”

    I had a poster of some of the gorgeous color photos Viking sent back when I was a kid. I hope someday a kid will have Curiosity’s photos on their wall and dream big as I did.

  • http://twitter.com/DoctorOddfellow Doctor Oddfellow

    Well, most of those men worked on the previous Mars rovers but I suspect that every landing is a moment of triumph like that for them. Talk about a fulfilling job!

  • John Wao

    Starbucks is already opening three stores next week.

  • http://www.facebook.com/wallace.marshall.58 Wallace Marshall

    Wow, that is really profound. I mean you’re right: what is the greatest question in all of philosophy, with its implications for the meaning and purpose of life, or whether there even IS a meaning to our existence, or why the universe is intelligible (which Einstein said was perhaps the most remarkable features of the world) … what is this compared to landing a spacecraft on Mars? And when I am lying on my deathbed and facing the gulf of an unknown eternity and wondering what the HELL it all meant…surely then, this event in the history of space exploration will be of vastly greater importance and consolation to me than the “chicken sandwich” of GOD. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/wallace.marshall.58 Wallace Marshall

    “A little philosophy inclineth a man’s mind to atheism, 
    but depth in philosophy bringeth him about to religion,
    and a Deity.”

    –Francis Bacon (philosopher and founder of the modern scientific method)

  • Lova Martin

    Curiosity stuck quite the impressive landing, involving a parachute, a rocket-pack and a tether.

    http://abclockandsafecompany.weebly.com/
     

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