Manbird wrote: 

Latest HiRes image from Curiosity:

 ScottN wrote: 
Yeah, it's an amazing achievement. I have no problem with them patting themselves on the back. I have a lot of friends abroad, and when I was watching that press conference I just sort of heard it from an outsiders point of view and it seemed insulting. It made me ashamed and gave me pause. I guess I think too much.

 ScottN wrote: 
Thank you for this comment. 

Why Designing a Mars Rover
Like Curiosity Just Got a Lot Easier

 ScottN wrote: 
Amen.  Take the political fingerpointing and so on to the political threads.  This mission is boffo!

 

I'll stay away from the critical view(s) expressed below, and simply say "that Curiosity (the Mars landing machine) is an incredible accomplishment for mankind".  It matters not to me which country launched the vehicle, but that it is, in fact, there and properly functioning, (so far).  Simply wonderful

Somewhat ironically, I suppose, is that we saw images of the MLS landing on Mars as sent by a previously launched man-made satellite. Cool .

We reach out for answers about Big Questions with our perhaps limited but ingenious methods, and we get answers (referring to other planetary vehicles, satellites and devices launched  'til now).  The whole idea of this exploration is for me incredible and humbling.  NASA may be flawed, but this is Big News. Curiosity is designed to last for years, hopefully decades (let it be so), and was about eight years in the making.  Kudos to NASA and JPL!

 GeneP59 wrote: 
Nothing you've writ here excuses vanity and arrogance. Sorry.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
You mean the all the jobs that Obama killed and keeps cutting the funding from NASA. And the idiot he put in charge in the administration. 

 Umberdog wrote: 
I saw young people celebrating something no other country had the intelligence and creativity to attain, something that has never been done before. Guess you never watched an Apollo launch or the first shuttle launch and the old guy's and how they celebrated with real cigars. 

As for those other countries that took part in this had nothing to do with the landing apparatus. They are responsible for the scientific apparatus strapped to the chassie. This type landing is something that has never been attempted before.

Remember why all those people come to this country, cause our greatness comes from our diversity in thinking where other countries stagnate their creativity. Just ask the Japanese.

An last you should ask the European nations and Russia about all their failed missions and all their crash site on the red planet. Oh, and what other nation has ever landed a human on another planet? 

0, none, nada.

 oldslabsides wrote: 
Drones in space!

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Not to mention the couple billion dollars worth of labor, hardware & various other resources that went into the effort.  I'm pretty sure they were well ahead of 50/50 on launch day.

 Manbird wrote: 
FAN-tastic!

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
I thought that too.

 bokey wrote: 
Also in the back of my mind: they're trying to keep their jobs

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Slick production on the broadcast too. Kind of like a reality TV show.

They had to be extremely confident going in. I understand all that could have gone wrong... but to promote the event so heavily, with "7 MINUTES OF TERROR!!" etc etc and really work at getting the largest audience possible... wouldn't most people, if they thought it was so risky, do it all on the QT and then when it works, go "Hey! Look what we did!"

 Manbird wrote: 
Exactly my reaction on hearing the news this morning.

Perhaps now that the space shuttle is history the author of the thread could be persuaded to revise the thread title.  Perhaps.

 Beaker wrote: